In the fertile farmlands of northwest Nigeria, fields of cotton, grains, beans, and nuts stretch across Kano State, sustaining millions of smallholder farmers. These farms are the backbone of local livelihoods. Yet, hidden beneath the promise of harvest lies a troubling contradiction: the continued presence of toxic herbicides that Nigeria has officially banned, but which still flow into the country through loopholes, weak enforcement, and foreign corporate influence.

For farmers like 56-year-old Abdulwahab Tsoho Adamu of Tassa village, the dilemma is deeply personal. Adamu grows maize and beans and knows firsthand the appeal of the herbicides paraquat and atrazine-both declared unsafe by Nigerian regulators. Despite being banned in dozens of countries, including across the European Union, they remain widely used in Nigeria. Paraquat was banned in 2023 and atrazine in 2024. But for small farmers battling aggressive weeds, especially during the rainy season, their effectiveness is hard to resist. “If you spray paraquat today, by the following morning it should have killed all the weeds on the farm,” Adamu said. For many, that speed and low cost outweigh the risks.

Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) appeared to take firm action. It labeled paraquat “highly toxic to humans and the environment” and acknowledged atrazine’s links to reproductive harm and other health risks. Both were placed under import bans, and NAFDAC carried out raids, seized contraband products, and even arrested vendors.

But investigations by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed that enforcement has been inconsistent at best. In 2024 alone, 37 shipments of paraquat and atrazine entered Nigeria after........

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