Border guards in Adamawa State have cracked down on illegal traders, capturing fuel, outdated painkillers, animal hides, and imported bathing bars valued at more than N112.5 million during a six-week sweep along the frontier with Cameroon.
The haul includes thousands of litres of petrol tucked into plastic containers, bundles of fake medicines past their use-by date, stacks of overseas cleaning goods, and raw hides from farm animals ready for export abroad.
Local customs chief Garba Bashir shared the details with reporters in Yola on Wednesday, highlighting 29 separate grabs that hit smugglers hard. He stressed that the agency’s job goes beyond collecting fees at ports—it covers protecting public safety, keeping the country secure, and shielding the economy from underhanded dealings.
#### Seized Fake Medicines Pose Grave Health Risks
Among the biggest worries were 91 boxes of 50mg Tramadol tablets that had gone off, snagged by patrol teams in Mubi on 30 August in a tip-off led hunt. Bashir warned that letting these dodgy pills loose could spark widespread illness and death, wreck lives, and tilt trade unfairly. He linked the spread of such knock-offs to rising misuse among young people, which fuels rough behaviour, fights, and community clashes.
He pointed to global health watchdogs estimating over a million yearly fatalities worldwide from shoddy or phony treatments, with African nations hit hardest. Under the latest customs rules, the batch will go to drug safety regulators for safe disposal. A top official from those regulators, Pharm. Gonzuk Bedima, accepted the handover in the video.
#### Animal Hides Fuel Fears of Wildlife Wipeout
Teams also stopped 64 full animal skins at the Damare waterside last month, each one a grim sign of a lost life from the fields. Bashir flagged this as a clear case of wild creature smuggling, urging quick action to halt the hidden killings and shipments that could push such beasts to the brink of vanishing forever.
#### Fuel and Soap Smugglers Feel the Heat
Patrols grabbed 20,600 litres of motor fuel stored in 824 small drums of 25 litres apiece, plus 54 boxes of bath bars from abroad at the same river spot in early October. The petrol will go up for public sale, with all earnings fed into national coffers.
Bashir painted the catches as a three-pronged danger: undercutting local sellers with cheap imports, endangering folks with bad health goods, and harming nature through poaching rings. He vowed to keep up the pressure on these threats to everyday safety and steady growth.
2 comments
Such a simple yet powerful message. Thanks for this.
I love how well-organized and detailed this post is.