Yesterday, the Nigeria Customs Service announced that it confiscated 140 species of snakes and 660 other exotic animals including hairy frogs, spiders, geckos, and millipedes imported from Cameroon at a Federal Inland Waterways jetty in Calabar, Cross River State. The N6.9 million worth animals, which were bound for Lagos, were concealed in three containers aboard a Cameroonian vessel, MV Flesh.
The Customs Area Comptroller in charge of Calabar Free Trade Zone, Mrs Nanbyen Burromvyat, said the consignments were intercepted on July 24, 2017, while the two suspects arrested for importing the animals were handed over to the authorities of the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Services for further investigation.
“There is no permit to bring live animals into the country. We have seized and we are handing the animals over to the Nigerian Quarantine Services for further action.
“I do not know what they want to do with them, but I think that the animals are dangerous because they include snakes, spiders, geckos and other creatures. We have enough snakes around Nigeria already.”
The officer in charge of the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Services in Cross River State, Sunday Ukut has also confirmed that animals might be destroyed. One of the suspects, Julius Novigana, a Cameroonian said he received the animals from a friend who asked him to deliver it to someone in Lagos.
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