A powerful smuggling network involving some operatives of the Nigerian Army, Police and Nigeria Customs Service is allegedly raking in between N4bn and N6bn every week by escorting contraband goods through border corridors in Lagos and Ogun states, findings have shown.
The cartel, which operates mainly along the Seme–Badagry axis and Idi Iroko routes, reportedly brings in foreign rice, used vehicles and other prohibited items from Benin Republic into Lagos after paying “settlements” to security officers stationed at the borders.
Insiders within the Union of Pioneers Association, a coalition of more than 3,000 border-area youths involved informally in the trade for years, said they had been used as foot-soldiers but excluded from the profits of the multi-billion-naira enterprise.
“They use us for the ground work. But we are the only ones not benefiting from what is happening in our own homeland,” one member told our correspondent.
Sources accused a major coordinator — described as a “notorious smuggling boss” — of running a hierarchy allegedly protected by high-ranking officers across different security formations.
“The leader has no vehicle, yet he collects returns from every operation. His own investment keeps growing while many indigenes don’t have a single thing to show,” another source said.
Union members alleged that soldiers from two military formations in Badagry were frequently deployed to escort truckloads of contraband into Lagos, instead of securing the borders.
One insider said Army personnel were sighted as recently as Saturday, November 22, supervising loading activities after an arrangement was concluded with customs operatives.
“The Army is supposed to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria, but they are busy escorting rice, cars and all kinds of contraband. The money they make is running into billions,” he alleged.
According to the operatives, border activities in Lagos are now tightly controlled by the cartel, pushing most smugglers to operate through seven active border routes in Ogun State, where goods allegedly pass with little hindrance.
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“Lagos is dead unless you belong to the cartel. Ogun borders are booming. That is why the money is so big,” a member said.
With December — the peak smuggling season — drawing near, union members said they were summoned to a meeting earlier in the week only to be informed that their long-requested operational target would not be approved.
They alleged that security agents were working with the cartel to shut them out of the lucrative “Christmas window,” when profit margins rise sharply due to high demand.
Frustrated by what they describe as “institutionalised corruption,” the group is preparing a petition to the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, demanding a full-scale investigation into the alleged billion-naira smuggling empire.
According to them, the involvement of soldiers, customs officers and police operatives in escorting contraband exposes the depth of compromise within Nigeria’s border security system.
