Clip of Nigerian customs officer explaining why he gave bandits food is old
- Published on December 4, 2025 at 12:39
- 3 min read
- By Oluseyi AWOJULUGBE, AFP Nigeria
Nigeria’s security challenges have drawn renewed attention after an upsurge in attacks from armed groups and US President Donald Trump’s comments about what he calls the targeted killing of Christians by “radical Islamists” -- a claim the Nigerian government rejects. In this context, posts widely circulated on social media as “breaking news” claimed that customs officers delivered food to armed groups in a forest in the country’s northeast “to sustain them”. However, the claim is misleading; the video dates back to 2021, when a customs service patrol team said they gave several bags of rice to bandits in exchange for their safety.
“Breaking news: Nigerian Customs Service delivers bags of rice to terrorists in Sambisa Forests to sustain them in these difficult times. How on earth did Nigeria get to this point?? (sic),” reads an X post published on November 20, 2025, and shared almost 7,000 times.
Sambisa forest is located in Borno state in northeast Nigeria.
The Nigeria Customs Service is a border security agency that facilitates international trade, enforces anti-smuggling laws, and imposes duties and tariffs.
The post contains a clip of a news broadcast from Nigerian media organisation TVC News.
In the video, a man wearing a customs service uniform is seen telling journalists: “I sacrifice my life to enter the bush where the bandits are. If I tell you the last time we had an encounter with them, to the extent that they were a little bit friendly with us...”
After a cut in the video, he continues: “We seized 37 bags of rice, and they said if we have to go, we have to take seven bags. So we gave them seven bags to save our lives, so you see the risk I took.”
In early November, the Trump administration designated Nigeria as a country of particular concern. He also threatened military action over claims that radical Islamists were “killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers” (archived here).
Washington's rhetoric -- rejected by the Nigerian government and independent security analysts alike -- has brought the country's security crisis into the spotlight (archived here).
Nigeria has been embroiled in a jihadist conflict since 2009, which has resulted in the death of over 40,000 people and the abduction of hundreds of children from schools in the northern region (archived here).
On November 21, armed gangs seized more than 300 teachers and staff at a school in north-central Nigeria. Fifty escaped, but the rest are still in captivity (archived here).
The country's customs agency has been on the trail of smugglers and seizing foreign rice consignments illegally shipped into Nigeria (archived here).
Despite this latest incident, the clip shared online does not show the Nigeria customs service saying they recently gave out rice to bandits.
2021 video
Nigerian customs officers regularly seize bags of foreign rice that are illegally smuggled into the country (archived here and here).
A reverse image search on keyframes of the footage led to a longer video published on the verified YouTube channel of TVC News Nigeria in March 2021 (archived here).
The title of the video was “Customs operatives offer bandits bags of rice for safety”.
At the time, Aliyu Mohammed, the coordinator of the Sector 4 Command of the Joint Border Patrol, said his team entered the forest and seized 37 bags of contraband rice from smugglers before running into bandits.
In exchange for their safety, Mohammed said the bandits requested seven bags of rice, which his team handed over.
The Nigeria Customs Service dissolved the joint border patrol unit in December 2024 (archived here).
AFP Fact Check has debunked other claims about insecurity in Nigeria, including one that a Christian community leader was recently beheaded.
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