After a poacher died following a clash with rangers at Nigeria’s Yankari Game Reserve, officials went with police to the nearby communities in Bauchi State, in the country’s restive northeast, to calm tensions. The relatives of the deceased had vowed retaliation.
“Prosecution of suspects arrested in the reserve is still very poor and the penalties imposed do not discourage offenders to stop or reduce poaching and illegal activities in the reserve,” the U.S.-headquartered Wildlife Conservation Society , which handles patrols at the reserve in partnership with the Bauchi government, wrote in its report in 2013.
Nigeria has for years failed to hold wildlife traffickers and poachers accountable for their crimes despite federal and state laws that criminalise the killing and trading of protected species, an investigation by PREMIUM TIMES and Mongabay has found. No suspect, amongst them Nigerians, Chinese, Malians, Guineans, and Ivorians, served a jail term over the last decade for illicit trafficking of animals. The government said it obtained four convictions in the last 11 years – three were awarded small fines.
We also interviewed officials, including prosecutors, environmental campaigners and traders at wildlife markets in Lagos, Cross River, Ogun and Bauchi States as well as the Federal Capital Territory. Together, they shine a light on how Nigeria’s law enforcement and justice systems have done little over the years to deter perpetrators of wildlife crimes.
But weak prosecution and penalties ensured poaching remained a threat. Elephant killings were recorded in 2020 and 2021, the first time since 2015. Hunters arrested in 2020 for killing waterbucks, bushbucks and hartebeest, and suspected of killing an elephant and removing its tusks, got between six and 18 months in jail.
Rangers hunted for the assailants for months, while also trying to track the reserve’s most wanted elephant poacher, Mr Bello, who himself had also killed a ranger a year earlier. Mr Bello was finally arrested in 2016 by rangers and soldiers in the neighbouring Plateau State, but police released him just months later.
The poorest instance of law enforcement involved the Afi Wildlife Sanctuary, where 80 arrests were made in nine years, and only three were prosecuted while one was convicted.
Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)
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