Nigeria
More actions
| Nigeria | |
|---|---|
| Nigeria | |
| |
| Obudu Mountains, Cross River State | |
| Capital | Abuja |
| Continent | Africa |
| Subregion | West Africa |
| Cannabis Status | |
| Legal Status | Illegal |
| Status Since | 1966 |
| Enforcement | Cultivation death or at least 21 years' imprisonment; NDLEA destroys farms |
| Documentation | |
| Growing Regions | 1 |
| Growing Areas | 2 |
| Accessions | 2 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Nigeria is a country in West Africa where cannabis, "Indian hemp" in its laws, is grown illegally. It is the drug most commonly used in the country: a national survey carried out in 2017 estimated that 10.8 per cent of people aged 15 to 64, about 10.6 million, had used it in the past year.[1]: 12 A survey of six south-western states found about 8,900 hectares under cannabis in 2019, with the densest fields on the border between Edo and Ondo states.[2]: 6
The psychiatrist T. Asuni wrote in 1964 that the plant had no traditional name in Nigeria. It was known as Indian hemp and by the names igbo (Yoruba), nwonkaka (Ibo) and gum, of which igbo was the most popular.[3] He held that soldiers and sailors returning from the Second World War had brought it to the country.[3] The geographer Chris S. Duvall disputes the view that cannabis was absent from West Africa before that war, citing 19th-century sources for psychoactive cannabis in Nigeria and five other West African countries.[4]: 13
The Indian Hemp Decree of 1966 made the knowing cultivation of any plant of the genus Cannabis punishable by death or by at least 21 years' imprisonment; the provision stands in the Indian Hemp Act as published in 2004.[5][6] The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), set up in 1989, destroys cannabis farms and reports its seizures each year.[7][8]
Geography
In 1962 the police found 22 cannabis plantations in the Western Region, four in the Northern Region and two in the Eastern Region; they found none in Lagos. The thin vegetation of the north did not hide plantations as the thick growth of the south did.[3] Cultivation has historically been concentrated in south-western Nigeria, and most of the country's cannabis grows in its fertile cocoa belt.[9]
In 1997 and 1998 generally low-grade cannabis was grown widely in the southern and Middle Belt states, among them Anambra, Delta, Kogi, Ogun and Ondo, on farms of up to 20 hectares. Production was spreading to the north and the west.[10]: 22 In 2003 cannabis was grown in all 36 states, according to Nigeria's reply to the annual questionnaire of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and to reports of the Dublin Group and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. It was most widespread in the north and in the states of Ondo (40 per cent), Delta (30 per cent), Edo and Cross River.[11]: 69
The cannabis survey of 2019 covered Edo, Ekiti, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo, states considered to hold the heaviest cultivation in the country.[2]: 6 In 2025 the NDLEA destroyed 104 cannabis farms in 10 states: 41 in Ondo, 33 in Edo, eight in Taraba, five each in Delta and Ekiti, four each in Cross River and Plateau, two in Osun and one each in Adamawa and Enugu.[8] Large illicit fields are found in Akure North, a local government area of Ondo State.[12]: 69
Demographics
In the national survey of 2017, past-year use of cannabis was seven times higher among men (18.8 per cent) than among women (2.6 per cent). The average age at first use was 19.[1]: 12 Past-year use was highest in Lagos State (20.0 per cent) and Oyo State (15.3 per cent).[1]: 23 A review of 72 studies published between 2000 and 2023 found a pooled lifetime prevalence of 8.28 per cent among adults and found being male a risk factor for use.[13]
Asuni found the users of the early 1960s mostly among the lower class in the towns.[3] By the account of the psychiatrist T. A. Lambo in 1965, users ranged from schoolboys and migrant workers to organised political thugs and secret societies, among them the Odozi Obodo and the Leopard-men Society of Nigeria. Abuse of hemp was rare in the north, not very frequent in the north-east and very noticeable in the Western Region.[14]
Agriculture
In the early 1960s the plant grew profusely in the tropical climate with little or no care. A plantation was usually set in the middle of a farm, with the ordinary crops planted around it to form a thick screen.[3] In rural households that had lost their young people to migrant labour, many of those who stayed behind grew a cash crop, and the cheapest with the greatest return was cannabis.[14] Growing cannabis in the cocoa belt has been relatively cheap and easy, a point already made in the 1960s.[9]
In parts of the south-west, farmers grow cannabis on the uplands in the rainy season and on the lowland wetlands in the dry season. The wetlands are otherwise used for rainfed rice, with larger areas kept for cannabis once the flood recedes. A study of 2022 in Akure North found maize intercropped with cannabis on the wetlands. Illicit farmland was often abandoned after about four years of exhaustive use; some of the plots studied had been turned to other crops after such use or after law enforcement had found them.[12]: 69–70 In 2019, 39 per cent of the cannabis fields detected lay on forest cleared that year.[2]: 6
Cannabis in Nigeria
History
Asuni wrote in 1964 that cannabis was not native to Nigeria. It had been introduced during and after the Second World War by sailors and by soldiers returning from the Middle East, the Far East and North Africa. He thought a First World War introduction less certain and said that any such introduction had not spread.[3] He inferred the plant's former rarity from its absence from the work of Tooth (1950) on the Gold Coast and of Lambo on Nigeria; inquiries among traditional healers in western Nigeria, he wrote, confirmed it. He noted that Dalziel's Useful Plants of West Tropical Africa did not mention it.[3] Lambo saw a withdrawal syndrome only in 10 former soldiers who had taken up the habit in India during the war.[14] Later accounts give the returning soldiers other origins. A United Nations study of 1999, which calls the date of introduction traditional, names service in South Africa;[10]: 21 a UNODC review of 2006, citing "local academics", names India and Burma.[11]: 69
Brian du Toit wrote in 1975 that cannabis had not been present in West Africa before the Second World War.[15]: 81, 101 Duvall disputes that claim as du Toit restated it in 1980, citing 19th-century primary sources for psychoactive cannabis in Gambia, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Senegal.[4]: 13
Police seizures of cannabis rose from 823 kilograms in 1961 to 7,151.941 kilograms in 1962. The Western Region led in both seizures and plantations.[3] About 471 people were prosecuted in 1962, of whom 400 were fined or imprisoned; in 1963 the number prosecuted almost doubled.[14] Asuni quoted a local weekly as saying that "Indian hemp became notorious with the introduction of thuggery in Nigerian politics".[3] In the account of the political scientist Gernot Klantschnig, the mid-1960s and the 1980s saw popular debate about the harm cannabis, heroin and cocaine could do to young people.[16] The debates of the 1960s turned almost entirely on the effect of cannabis on urban youth.[9] Cannabis seizures, which had risen steadily from the mid-1960s, fell abruptly in the late 1980s, when cocaine and heroin became the major policy concerns. Seizures rose again once the NDLEA had resources.[16]
The NDLEA launched its eradication programme, Operation Burn the Weed, in 1994. By its own count it destroyed over 430 tons of cannabis by 1997.[10]: 22 In UNODC's account eradication peaked in the late 1990s and was low in the first years of the 21st century; figures from 2005 suggested renewed attention to it.[17]: 6
Cultivation
The 2019 survey estimated the area under cannabis in the six states at 8,900 hectares, within a range of 5,300 to 18,200 hectares.[2]: 6, 10 From 2016 to 2018 an average of 1,600 hectares a year was eradicated across Nigeria, almost a fifth of the area estimated for the six states.[2]: 7 In 2019 the NDLEA's chairman said that an operation of its Ondo State command, Operation Thunderstorm, had destroyed 3,900.73 hectares "planted in forest reserves".[18] By 2023 the tropical forests of Nigeria had become hubs of illicit cannabis cultivation.[19]: 60
Marijuana from Akure and Delta State was said in the late 1990s to be of higher quality and to fetch higher prices.[10]: 22 A batch seized by the NDLEA's Oyo State command in Ibadan in April 2022 was analysed by gas chromatography. In an ethanol extract of its leaves, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol made up 35.78 per cent of the total peak area and cannabidiol 3.92 per cent; the authors class it as chemotype 1, a drug type. The plant is called igbo, wiwi and ebo in Nigeria.[20]
Preparations and consumption
In the early 1960s cannabis was grown in Nigeria only for smoking. It was not used for fibre, nor chewed or brewed. It did not enter the remedies of traditional healers.[3] A review of 1982 by A. O. Pela and J. C. Ebie of the University of Benin found the same. Cannabis was consumed by smoking "the prepared leaves and flowering seeds"; no other preparation had been reported. It had no known medical use in the country. Pela and Ebie name it "pot", igbo, "wee wee", marijuana, ganja and "Morocco".[21] A study of 2022 calls it igbo, ganja, "stone", "morocco", "weed" and "smoke".[12]: 68 Smokers interviewed in Nigeria and Ghana in the late 1990s said that cannabis helped them cope with the frustrations of their lives and kept them from reacting aggressively.[10]: 80
Trade and commerce
In the early 1960s Indian hemp was being exported in large quantity to the United Kingdom by sea, carried by passengers.[3] By 2007 cannabis was grown for export in West Africa, notably in Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal, and Nigerian cannabis was trafficked to other West African countries.[17]: 6 Nigeria seized 126 tonnes of cannabis herb in 2005, the third largest seizure in Africa that year after South Africa and Tanzania.[17]: 2 In 2014 the West Africa Commission on Drugs, chaired by Olusegun Obasanjo, wrote that cannabis had been grown for consumption and export in Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal for decades.[22]: 28
Legal status
The Dangerous Drugs Act (No. 12 of 1935, in force from 1 July 1935) applies its first part to raw opium, coca leaves and Indian hemp; in the text of 2004 it empowers the President to regulate their import, export, production, possession and sale.[23]: ss. 3–4 The Indian Hemp Decree, No. 19 of 31 March 1966, made under the Federal Military Government of Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, defined Indian hemp as any plant or part of a plant of the genus Cannabis, its separated resin and any preparation containing it, "by whatever name". Knowingly planting or cultivating cannabis carried death or at least 21 years' imprisonment; importing or knowingly selling Indian hemp, death or at least 15 years; smoking or knowingly possessing it, at least 10 years. The decree also amended the Dangerous Drugs Act.[5]: ss. 1–5, Schedule
The Indian Hemp Act, as published in the Laws of the Federation of 2004, whose citation line refers to an amendment of 1984, keeps death or at least 21 years for cultivation. It sets at least 21 years, without the death penalty, for importing or selling. Smoking or possession carries at least four years "without the option of a fine".[6]: ss. 2, 3, 5 In 1986 Asuni and Pela wrote that death by firing squad was the punishment in Nigeria for illegal possession, use, trafficking or cultivation of dangerous drugs.[24]
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act, Decree No. 48 of 29 December 1989, makes the cultivation of the cannabis plant for the production of narcotic drugs contrary to the 1961 Convention punishable by life imprisonment.[7]: s. 20 In 2016 the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of a man sentenced to two years' imprisonment for dealing in 1.050 kilograms of Indian hemp in Abuja in 2009, an offence charged under section 11(c) of that Act.[25]
In May 2024 the Senate voted for the death penalty for drug traffickers in a bill to amend the NDLEA Act.[26] The text the two chambers agreed in November 2024 provided life imprisonment instead.[27] President Bola Tinubu declined to assent to an NDLEA amendment bill in June 2025, objecting to a clause that would have let the NDLEA keep part of the proceeds of drug crimes.[28] In October 2026 he sent the Senate a National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Bill that would repeal both the NDLEA Act and the Indian Hemp Act and replace them with a single framework; the Senate referred it to its Committee on Rules and Business.[29]
In 2019 the NDLEA restated its opposition to the legalisation or decriminalisation of cannabis, after the governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, had called for its commercial cultivation to diversify the economy.[18] In 2021 Akeredolu said that Ondo was ready to be the pilot state for "green CBD oil" and for controlled cultivation for medicinal purposes.[30]
Nigeria signed the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs on 30 March 1961 and ratified it on 6 June 1969. It acceded to the Convention as amended by the 1972 Protocol on 24 June 1981 and to the Convention on Psychotropic Substances on 23 June 1981. It ratified the 1988 Convention on 1 November 1989.[31][32][33][34]
Enforcement
The NDLEA reports the cannabis it seizes and the area of cannabis farmland it finds and destroys each year.
| Year | Cannabis seized (kg) | Farmland destroyed (ha) | Report |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 273,249.08 | 3,660.64 | 2019[35] |
| 2019 | 602,654.49 | 473.15 | 2019[35] |
| 2021 | 469,246.4 | 405.705 (11 states) | 2021[36] |
| 2022 | 2,057,020.05 | 379.204 (11 states) | 2023[37] |
| 2023 | 1,231,965.90 | 206.75 (11 states) | 2023[37] |
| 2024 | 219.202 (29 farms, 11 states) | 2024[38] | |
| 2025 | 640.59 (104 farms, 10 states) | 2025[8] |
The farms destroyed also yielded 659,322.99 kilograms of cannabis in 2023, 548,003.831 kilograms in 2024 and 1,601,475.76 kilograms in 2025.[37][38][8] The government reported to UNODC that more than 3,600 hectares were eradicated in 2018, more than a third of the area the 2019 survey estimated for its six states.[2]: 18 Klantschnig writes that violent eradication campaigns, at times killing farmers, brutal arrests, illegal detentions and harassment at airports are the everyday face of drug control for many Nigerians.[16]
Growing Regions
Landrace cannabis growing regions currently documented on the wiki:
| Region |
|---|
| South-western Nigeria |
Growing Areas
Landrace cannabis growing areas currently documented on the wiki:
| Growing Area | Has growing region |
|---|---|
| Edo | South-western Nigeria |
| Ondo | South-western Nigeria |
Accessions
Map
List
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| AFP-NGA-UNK-0120090001 | Nigerian 2009 | ||
| KHA-NGA-UNK-0120090001 | 2009 KHA Nigerian Sativa Reproduction |
Conservation status
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew holds in its spirit collection a specimen gathered by M. G. Latilo at Oritamefa, Ibadan, on 15 September 1954. A specimen gathered in 2003 at Old Netim, Akamkpa, in Cross River State, comes from a cultivated area; another was gathered at Fatunmo village in Lagos State in 2013.[39] A voucher of the batch analysed in 2025 is kept at the herbarium of the University of Ilorin.[20]
The seed seller Afropips listed a line called Nigerian among its pure African lines by April 2009.[40] Khalifa Genetics sells seed of a line it says came from the Afropips collection.[41]
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2018). Drug Use in Nigeria 2018 (PDF) (Report). Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2022). Nigeria Cannabis Survey: 2019 Baseline Assessment in Six States (PDF) (Report). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 Asuni, T. (1964). "Socio-psychiatric problems of cannabis in Nigeria". Bulletin on Narcotics. 16 (2): 17–28.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Duvall, Chris S. (2019). The African Roots of Marijuana. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. pp. 13, 25, 27–28, 31. doi:10.1215/9781478004530. ISBN 978-1-4780-0394-6.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Indian Hemp Decree 1966(Decree No. 19 of 1966), 31 March 1966, Supplement to Official Gazette Extraordinary No. 33, Vol. 53, 4 April 1966, Part A, pp. A93–A97.Federal Military Government.Nigeria.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Indian Hemp Act(Act, Cap. I23 No. 19 of 1966), 31 March 1966, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.Nigeria.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act(Act, Cap. N30 No. 48 of 1989), 29 December 1989, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.Nigeria.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. 2025 Annual Report (PDF) (Report). National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Carrier, Neil; Klantschnig, Gernot (2016). "Illicit livelihoods: drug crops and development in Africa". Review of African Political Economy. 43 (148): 174–189. doi:10.1080/03056244.2016.1170676.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (March 1999). The Drug Nexus in Africa (PDF) (Report). ODCCP Studies on Drugs and Crime, Monograph series 1. Vienna: United Nations.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2006). "Review of the world cannabis situation" (PDF). Bulletin on Narcotics. LVIII (1 and 2). New York: United Nations (published 2008).
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Kolo, J.; Ukabiala, M. E.; Osakwe, U. C.; Parah, J. B.; Nyamapfene, K.; Obalum, S. E.; Hassan, A. M.; Nnabude, P. C.; Igwe, C. A. (2022). "Overlooked influence of Indian hemp (Cannabis sativa) cultivation on soil physicochemical fertility of humid tropical agroecosystems: lowland soils". West African Journal of Applied Ecology. 30 (1): 68–81.
- ↑ Odeigah, Ogochukwu W.; Dumbili, Emeka W.; Nelson, Ediomo-Ubong (2025). "Cannabis use patterns, prevalence, and risk factors in Nigeria: a systematic review and meta-analysis". Journal of Cannabis Research. 7 (1) 88. doi:10.1186/s42238-025-00337-0.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Lambo, T. A. (1965). "Medical and social problems of drug addiction in West Africa, with special emphasis on psychiatric aspects". Bulletin on Narcotics. 17 (1): 3–13.
- ↑ du Toit, Brian M. (1975). "Dagga: The History and Ethnographic Setting of Cannabis sativa in Southern Africa". In Rubin, Vera (ed.). Cannabis and Culture. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 81–116. doi:10.1515/9783110812060.81.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Klantschnig, Gernot (2016). "The politics of drug control in Nigeria: exclusion, repression and obstacles to policy change". International Journal of Drug Policy. 30: 132–139. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.10.012.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2007). Cannabis in Africa: an overview (Report). UNODC.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Cannabis: NDLEA disowns Akeredolu, destroys 3,900 hectares in Ondo". Ripples Nigeria. 21 May 2019. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ International Narcotics Control Board (2024). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2023 (PDF) (Report). Vienna: United Nations. ISBN 978-92-1-003052-6. E/INCB/2023/1.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Ajagun, Ebele Joan; Alabi, Babatunde Adebola; Alli-oluwafuyi, Abdul-musawwir; Ologe, Mary Olufunmilayo (2025). "Toxicological evaluation and preliminary phytochemical characterisation of a Nigerian Cannabis sativa chemovar". Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences. 28 (12). doi:10.22038/ijbms.2025.85494.18494. PMC 12829708. PMID 41586191.
- ↑ Pela, A. O.; Ebie, J. C. (1982). "Drug abuse in Nigeria: a review of epidemiological studies". Bulletin on Narcotics. 34 (3 and 4): 91–99.
- ↑ West Africa Commission on Drugs (June 2014). Not Just in Transit: Drugs, the State and Society in West Africa (PDF) (Report). West Africa Commission on Drugs.
- ↑ Dangerous Drugs Act(Act, Cap. D1 No. 12 of 1935), 1 July 1935, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.Nigeria.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Asuni, T.; Pela, A. O. (1986). "Drug abuse in Africa". Bulletin on Narcotics (1): 55–64.
- ↑ "Abdullahi v Federal Republic of Nigeria (SC 288/2012) [2016] NGSC 31". Supreme Court of Nigeria. 17 March 2016. Retrieved 14 October 2026 – via NigeriaLII.
- ↑ Ume-Ezeoke, Gloria (9 May 2024). "Senate Okays Death Penalty For Drug Traffickers". Channels Television. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Aborisade, Sunday (22 November 2024). "National Assembly Prescribes Life Jail for Drug Offenders, Traffickers". ThisDay. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Ikumi, Terry (26 June 2025). "Tinubu Declines Assent To NDLEA Bill". Channels Television. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Elijah, Samson (14 October 2026). "Tinubu Transmits NDLEA, NSIB Bills To Senate For Consideration". Leadership. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ "Akeredolu urges research into cannabis usage for medicinal purposes". The Guardian. Lagos. 2 September 2021. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 15. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, as amended by the Protocol amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961: status". United Nations Treaty Collection. United Nations. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ "Convention on Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 16. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ "United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 19. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. 2019 Annual Report (PDF) (Report). National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Annual Report 2021 (PDF) (Report). National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. 2023 Annual Report (PDF) (Report). National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 38.0 38.1 National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. 2024 Annual Report (PDF) (Report). National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence search: Cannabis, Nigeria". Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ "Pure Africans". Afropips. Archived from the original on 13 April 2009. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ "Nigerian Sativa". Khalifa Genetics. Archived from the original on 20 May 2024. Retrieved 12 October 2026.