Nigeria has fired two top aviation officials for helping drug traffickers evade security at its international airport, the aviation minister said on Friday.
The pair were dismissed after closed-circuit television showed staff allowing traffickers to pass through secure doors at the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos, Aviation Minister Babalola Borishade said.
“Some aviation security officials conspired, aided and abetted hard drugs carriers through unauthorised doors facilitating the circumvention of security procedures,” the minister said in a statement.
Borishade said Balarabe Usman, head of security of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, was sacked along with another senior staff member.
Nigeria does not produce narcotics, but its large pool of potential drug “mules” and weak controls has made it a favourite trafficking route to Europe and the United States for producers in Asia and South America.
Mules can make as much as $5,000 per trip from Nigeria, a recent U.S. State Department report said, a fortune in a country where the majority live on less than $1 a day.
The sackings follow the arrest in January of the Lagos airport commander of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, who was accused of selling drugs seized from traffickers.
Thousands of couriers have been convicted in the last few years, and hundreds of kilos of drugs seized at Nigeria’s air and sea ports — including a record 60 kg haul of cocaine in Lagos in 2001.
But sentences and jail terms for drug trafficking are relatively light, and do not act as a strong disincentive, according to the State Department.