By Kio Amachree
Lebanese trolls have been crawling onto my page to insult me and accuse me of spreading lies about Hezbollah’s operational presence in Nigeria. Let me be absolutely clear about who you are dealing with.
I am Kio Amachree — eldest son of Chief Godfrey Kio Jaja Amachree QC, Nigeria’s first Solicitor-General, first Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Justice, and the first African Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. My grandfather, Chief Sekin Amachree, was a delegate to the 1958 Constitutional Conference and the Willink Commission — the very foundations upon which the Nigerian state was built. I am not a blogger. I am not a rumour merchant. I am a man who deals in intelligence, documentation, and accountability — and I have the institutional connections and the absolute will to go as deep as this requires.
You are guests in Nigeria. Your community has enjoyed Nigerian hospitality for generations. Your country is under siege — and yet you come onto the page of a son of this nation’s founding fathers to call him a liar? I would strongly suggest you examine your own conduct before you examine mine.
Here is what you need to understand: the more you insult me, the deeper I dig. I have barely scratched the surface of what I know and what I can document. Every taunt is an invitation to publish more. Whether I source material through AI-assisted research, intelligence networks, or open-source documentation makes absolutely no difference to the criminal record that already exists — in Nigerian federal courts, in UN Security Council filings, and in the archives of the DSS, the U.S. Department of Treasury, and the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
The facts do not become untrue because you dislike the messenger. A man was convicted in a Nigerian Federal High Court and sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with a Hezbollah arms network on Nigerian soil. That is not AI. That is a judge. That is a gavel. That is the law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Stop the attacks on this page — or accept the consequences of what continued provocation will bring in terms of further exposure.
HERE IS THE DOCUMENTED LEGAL RECORD.
INCIDENT 1 — OCTOBER 2010 – IRGC ARMS SHIPMENT SEIZED — APAPA PORT, LAGOS
Nigerian SSS / UN Security Council Sanctions Committee
Nigerian security forces boarded the M/V CMA CGM Everest at Apapa Port, Lagos, and seized 13 containers falsely declared as building materials. Inside: 107mm Katyusha artillery rockets — the same rockets Hezbollah fired at Israel in 2006 — 60mm, 80mm and 120mm mortars, grenades, explosives, and rocket launchers. The cargo had been loaded at Bandar Abbas, Iran, the principal naval base of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. A senior IRGC Quds Force officer was arrested on Nigerian soil. Nigeria filed a formal report with the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee in November 2010. A UN expert delegation flew to Nigeria to investigate. One IRGC operative and a Nigerian accomplice were subsequently convicted by a Nigerian court and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
Sources: AFP / UPI, October 2010; Critical Threats / AEI, March 2011; Combating Terrorism Center, West Point, November 2017.
INCIDENT 2 — 20 FEBRUARY 2013 – IRANIAN-DIRECTED TERROR CELL DISMANTLED — LAGOS
Department of State Security (DSS), Nigeria
The Nigerian DSS announced the exposure and dismantling of a militant cell operating under direct Iranian direction, led by a Nigerian cleric who had trained in Iran and worked for Radio Tehran’s Hausa-language service. The cell had been tasked with establishing a terror infrastructure in south-western Nigeria, with planned attacks against American, Israeli, and Jewish targets in Lagos. Four individuals were arrested. The DSS described this as the first confirmed Iranian-directed network of its kind on Nigerian soil.
Sources: DSS Official Statement, 20 February 2013; Israel Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
INCIDENT 3 — 16 TO 28 MAY 2013 – HEZBOLLAH ARMS BUNKER UNCOVERED — BOMPAI, KANO
Nigerian Army / DSS Kano State / Federal High Court, Abuja
Following a month-long covert operation, Nigerian security forces discovered an underground concrete bunker concealed beneath the master bedroom of a residential compound in the upmarket Bompai neighbourhood, Kano.
THE ARSENAL RECOVERED:
21 rocket-propelled grenades and launcher · 17 AK-47 assault rifles and 44 magazines · 11,000+ rounds of ammunition · 60mm anti-tank weapons · 4 anti-tank landmines · 2 rounds of 122mm artillery ammunition · 103 packages of TNT · 76 hand grenades · 9 handguns and sub-machine gun · quantities of dynamite
PERSONS ARRESTED:
1. Mustapha Fawaz — arrested 16 May 2013. Lebanese-Nigerian dual national. Owner, Amigo Supermarket (Kano) and Wonderland Amusement Park (Abuja).
2. Abdullah Tahini — arrested at Kano airport attempting to board a flight to Beirut.
3. Talal Ahmad Roda — arrested 26 May 2013 at the Bompai compound. Lebanese-Nigerian dual national.
4. Fauzi Fawad — identified as fourth suspect. Fled Nigeria.
All three in custody confessed to Hezbollah membership and Hezbollah-conducted military training. DSS Kano State Director Bassey Etang declared publicly: “This is the handiwork of Hezbollah. What you have seen is a Hezbollah armoury. These weapons are meant to target Israeli and Western interests in Nigeria.” Military spokesman Captain Ikedichi Iweha stated: “All those arrested have confessed to have undergone Hezbollah terrorist training.”
Sources: Al Jazeera, 31 May 2013; Al Arabiya, 30 May 2013; France 24, 30 May 2013; BBC, 30 May 2013.
INCIDENT 4 — JUNE TO OCTOBER 2013 – FEDERAL PROSECUTION — 15-COUNT CHARGE SHEET
Terrorism (Prevention) Act · Federal High Court, Abuja
Prosecution Counsel: Simon Edege · SSS Legal Counsel: Clifford Osagie
The three accused were charged on 15 counts before the Federal High Court, Abuja, under Nigeria’s Terrorism (Prevention) Act. Charges included unlawful importation and storage of prohibited firearms; weapons trafficking; conspiracy to commit terrorist acts; money laundering for a terrorist organisation; and membership in a terrorist organisation. SSS Counsel Clifford Osagie stated on record: “We have proofs that the applicants belong to the military wing of Hezbollah which is a terrorist organization.” This was the first explicit official acknowledgement by a Nigerian government legal representative of Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist entity on Nigerian soil.
Sources: VOA News, 21 October 2013; Jerusalem Post, 2013; Vanguard Nigeria.
VERDICT — NOVEMBER 2013 – LIFE IMPRISONMENT — FEDERAL HIGH COURT, ABUJA
Judge: Hon. Adeniyi Ademola Adetokunbo
Talal Ahmad Roda was found guilty of conspiracy to unlawfully import and store prohibited firearms in connection with the Hezbollah network. Judge Adeniyi Ademola Adetokunbo sentenced him to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment. This is the first judicial conviction in Nigerian legal history directly connected to a Hezbollah arms network on Nigerian soil. This is the record. This is the law. This is the gavel of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Sources: Times of Israel, November 2013; VOA News, October–November 2013.
INCIDENT 5 — JULY 2018 – HEZBOLLAH TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR NIGERIANS — BEIRUT, LEBANON
Middle East Institute, Washington D.C.
An investigative report by the Middle East Institute, drawing on sources with direct access to Hezbollah command, documented that Hezbollah maintains a structured training programme for Nigerian nationals at its cultural centre in Dahieh, south Beirut. Higher-ranking Nigerian officers are trained in Lebanon then repatriated to train domestic recruits. Trainees cycle back to Lebanon every three to six months for instruction in more sophisticated weapons systems. Iran’s directive to Hezbollah was explicit: to recruit and train Nigerians to establish a permanent operational base in Nigeria — serving as a platform for Iranian operations across the entire African continent.
Source: Middle East Institute, Washington D.C., 5 July 2018.
INCIDENT 6 — OCTOBER 2021 – STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT — IRAN AND HEZBOLLAH WEST AFRICA INFRASTRUCTURE
Hudson Institute, Washington D.C.
A peer-reviewed Hudson Institute paper confirmed that Iran’s Force for Revolutionary Defence maintains three defined objectives in Nigeria: to recruit Nigerians for Hezbollah military units; to construct permanent Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure on Nigerian soil; and to support broader Iranian operations globally using Nigeria as a continental hub. Nigeria’s Lebanese Shia diaspora of approximately 20,000 is identified as providing financial and logistical cover. Iranian cultural centres across Nigeria are documented as being used to conceal illicit activity behind a facade of religious and cultural programming.
Source: Hudson Institute, “The Iranian Revolutionary Apparatus and Hezbollah in West Africa,” October 2021.
THE NUMBERS:
1 life sentence — Nigerian Federal High Court
15 criminal counts — Terrorism (Prevention) Act
13 IRGC weapons containers — Apapa Port, 2010
4 separate documented incidents — 2010 to 2021
I say this with the full weight of my family name, my platform, and my conscience: Nigeria is not a theatre for foreign proxy warfare. Our hospitality has limits. Our patience has limits. Our memory does not.
To those who came to insult: you have only made me more determined. Come back with facts or do not come back at all.
(Legal instruments referenced: Nigeria Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 as amended 2013; UN Security Council Resolution 1737; U.S. Department of Treasury Executive Order 13224.)
Kio Amachree is President, Worldview International Stockholm, Sweden – May 2026