South-western Nigeria
More actions
| South-western Nigeria | |
|---|---|
| ActiveCannabis last recorded here in 2026 | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 6.92, 4.94 |
| Country | Nigeria |
| Provinces/States | Ondo State,Edo State,Ekiti State,Ogun State |
| Area | 57,000 km² |
| Climate | Tropical rainforest |
| Growing history | |
| Dated news reports | 2026 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
South-western Nigeria is a cannabis growing region in Nigeria, covering the states of Ondo, Edo, Ekiti and Ogun. The political scientists Neil Carrier and Gernot Klantschnig write that cannabis cultivation in Nigeria has historically been concentrated in the south-west of the country, and that most of its cannabis grows in the fertile cocoa belt.[1] In 2019 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) surveyed six states from the air and estimated about 8,900 hectares under cannabis. They found fields in Edo, Ekiti, Ogun and Ondo, and none in the sampled parts of Osun and Oyo. The fields were densest along the border between Edo and Ondo, in remote forest country with few people.[2]: 6, 10 Two growing areas lie within the region: Ondo, on Ondo State, and Edo, on the local government areas of Edo State along the Ondo border.
Geography
The UNODC survey and the NDLEA chose their six states, in the south-west and south-central regions of the country, from the NDLEA's accounts of seizures and farms over the previous decade. Within them the survey left out the swampy, often flooded lowlands along the rivers of Ogun, Ondo and Edo, and the large cities.[2]: 10, 14 It gives Edo State 19,589 km², Ogun 16,093 km², Ondo 14,527 km² and Ekiti 5,237 km².[2]: 37 In its account the climate of the tropical rainforest in the south-west favours cannabis, a rain-fed crop, while the warm, semi-arid north suits it less.[2]: 11
The fields the survey found lay deep in dense forest, away from towns and roads: half of them were nearly six kilometres from the nearest road. The survey ties cannabis to places with a low population, high forest cover and a high rate of deforestation.[2]: 6
Cultivation history
The psychiatrist T. A. Asuni reported in 1964 that western Nigeria led the country in seizures of cannabis and in plantations found. His figures for 1962 give 22 plantations in the Western Region, four in the Northern Region and two in the Eastern. He noted a suggestion, which he could not test, that the soil and conditions there suited the plant and that its potency was higher than in the east or north. A plantation was usually set in the middle of a farm, with the ordinary crops planted round it to hide it; one of his photographs shows a typical plantation in thick forest.[3]
A United Nations study based on field visits in 1997 and 1998 found generally low-grade cannabis grown widely in the southern and Middle Belt states, among them Ogun and Ondo, on farms of up to 20 hectares; marijuana from Akure was said to be of higher quality and to fetch higher prices.[4]: 22 Nigeria's reply to the UNODC questionnaire in 2003, with reports of the Dublin Group and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, placed cultivation in all 36 states. It was most widespread in the north and in four southern states, among them Ondo, with 40 per cent, and Edo.[5]: 69 Carrier and Klantschnig write that the cocoa belt has been hit hard since the 1960s by falling prices for export crops, that cannabis has been relatively cheap and easy to grow there, and that farmers facing falling terms of trade, and policies that made legal crops hard to grow and sell, have turned to it to diversify.[1]
The NDLEA's annual reports give the area of cannabis farms the agency destroyed in each state. In 2021 it destroyed 183.405 hectares in Ondo and 49.589 in Edo, out of 405.704 hectares nationally.[6]: 36 Its report for 2023 found the largest concentrations of plantations over the previous two years in Ondo, Edo, Delta and Ekiti,[7]: 54 and gives 80.94 hectares destroyed in Edo, 65 in Ondo and 11.75 in Ogun in 2023, out of 206.73.[7]: 55 In 2025 the agency destroyed 104 farms in ten states: 41 in Ondo (82.72 hectares), 33 in Edo (76.09 hectares) and five in Ekiti (96.02 hectares).[8]: 65
In Edo State outside the Ondo border, the NDLEA reported destroying two farms of suspected cannabis, covering 1.85 hectares, at Ugboku, in the Igbanke forest of Orhionmwon, in August 2026,[9] and, with the army, two plantations covering 0.54 hectares at Eko Camp, Illushi, in Esan South-East, in September. The two men arrested at Illushi, both from the local government area, said they had taken to growing cannabis because of poverty and the influence of friends.[10]
Growing practice
The survey describes how a field is made: forest or other cover is cleared, the ground ploughed and tilled, and seed raised in nursery beds near the field before the seedlings are transplanted. Seedlings are often set out in stages, so that one field holds plants of different ages and the harvest is spread out. In the wet season the fields reportedly depend on rain alone; in the dry season they are watered with pumps, hoses, cans and buckets from nearby streams and rivers, or planted beside them. Most of the work, from clearing to harvest, packing and guarding the fields, is done by hired labourers,[2]: 22 who mostly stay in the field or in shelters nearby during the harvest. Cassava, banana, cocoa, maize, pepper and yam are grown with cannabis, to hide it and to feed the farmers and workers. The fields are small: of the 711 the survey found, the median covered 0.33 hectares. Ogun had the largest median field, about one hectare, and Edo the smallest, 0.24 hectares.[2]: 23
On the survey's general calendar for the six states, growers raise seedlings in nurseries from February and plant out between early April and late June. The plants mature in three to four months, reaching 2.5 to 3 metres, and the harvest runs from August to November, at its height in September and October. A dry-season harvest was reported from every state surveyed: nurseries are set out along riverbanks in October or November and the crop is cut between March and July.[2]: 26
Trade
Carrier and Klantschnig describe wholesalers working in northern Nigeria in the late 1990s and early 2000s who bought cannabis in the country's producing regions and sold it in the north; one bought from a supplier who carried it directly from southern Nigeria to Kaduna.[1] In Ogun, the survey was told, cannabis costs more in the towns than in the countryside, and one informant said that other cannabis farmers gather the crop into larger consignments.[2]: 29
Growing Areas
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 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.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 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.
- ↑ Asuni, T. (1964). "Socio-psychiatric problems of cannabis in Nigeria". Bulletin on Narcotics. 16 (2): 17–28.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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).
- ↑ National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Annual Report 2021 (PDF) (Report). National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. 2023 Annual Report (PDF) (Report). National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. 2025 Annual Report (PDF) (Report). National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Wahab, Akinbayo (17 August 2026). "NDLEA destroys 4.6 tonnes of suspected cannabis farms in Edo". Vanguard. Lagos. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Kanjo, Joseph (29 September 2026). "NDLEA, Army destroy cannabis farms, arrest two suspects in Edo". The Guardian. Lagos. Retrieved 21 October 2026.