Ozor Ndi Ozor@OzorNdiOzor
“Something very dangerous happened in Nigeria in October 2010 that should have changed everything about our national security forever.
Nigerian security agents received credible intelligence about suspicious cargo sitting at Apapa Port in Lagos.
They moved in fast.
When they cracked open the 13 shipping containers, they didn’t find building materials like the shipping documents claimed.
They found weapons.
Hundreds of 107mm Katyusha artillery rockets. Mortars of different sizes. Rocket launchers. Grenades. Explosives. Thousands of rounds of ammunition.
All of it carefully hidden inside pallets of glass wool and stone.
The entire shipment had come straight from Bandar Abbas, Iran — a major port controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
It was loaded and sealed in Iran and shipped on the MV CMA CGM Everest.
The Iranian “businessman” behind it? Azim Aghajani — a man Nigerian authorities and UN investigators later identified as a senior operative of the IRGC Quds Force.
Four people were arrested, including Aghajani.
This was no ordinary smuggling job. It was a clear violation of UN arms sanctions against Iran.
Iran quickly denied any government involvement, calling it a “private trader’s mistake.”
But the evidence was overwhelming.
Aghajani was convicted in a Nigerian court in 2013 and sentenced to five years for arms smuggling.
The weapons were exactly the type used by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Weapons of war were flowing straight into Nigeria.
Now fast forward to May 2013.
Something even more chilling happened in Kano.
After weeks of surveillance, Nigerian security forces raided a warehouse in the city.
What they discovered was officially described as a full “Hezbollah armoury” and an active terrorist cell operating on Nigerian soil.
Inside the warehouse: AK-47 rifles, anti-tank weapons, rocket-propelled grenades with missiles, submachine guns, hand grenades, explosives and massive amounts of ammunition.
All stored professionally in sawdust, ready for deployment.
Three Lebanese nationals were arrested on the spot.
Nigerian intelligence explicitly linked the entire cache to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group.
These were not local thugs playing with guns.
This was a foreign terror network with state-level support.
Now guess what?
Despite two major, well-documented interceptions proving that the Iranian government and its proxy Hezbollah were secretly shipping advanced weapons into Nigeria, the full networks were never completely dismantled in public view.
Some arrests were made, diplomatic noises were issued, and relations with Iran were eventually restored.
Yet the same patterns of influence through certain religious groups, cultural ties and untraceable supply lines continue to raise serious questions even today, while Nigeria battles deadly insecurity on multiple fronts.
The weapons were real.
The links were real.
The threat was real.
And just like that… life went on.