A top United States narcotics official has named Nigeria as a fresh target for Mexican drug cartels looking to expand their methamphetamine trade into Africa.
The warning came from Michael Gonzales, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs for Africa and the Middle East.
According to another news media, Naija News, Gonzales made the disclosure during a visit to the headquarters of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said cartels are increasingly looking at Africa as an alternative route for trafficking synthetic drugs, as US pressure mounts on criminal networks across the Western Hemisphere.
The visit comes just months after the NDLEA dismantled four methamphetamine laboratories across Nigeria this year, an operational record Gonzales said influenced his choice of destination.
Gonzales Praises NDLEA’s “Impressive Wins”
Gonzales told NDLEA officials that Nigeria was his first stop after assuming his role four months ago, covering the whole of Africa and the Middle East.
“Because as a leader, as an economic powerhouse on the continent, but also particularly NDLEA for the leadership and the impressive wins that you and your team and your interagency counterparts have delivered time and again,” he said.
He added that he wanted to see the agency’s work firsthand.
“In addition to the very robust partnership between INL and NDLEA, I wanted to see firsthand where the magic happens, as we say in the United States,” Gonzales said, referring to the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), the US State Department unit he represents.
He singled out the four meth lab busts as proof of strong intelligence work and inter-agency coordination.
“The four meth lab busts just this year alone are a testament to the deployment of some of the best practices in our tradecraft, the intelligence-based knowledge collection, the coordination across national lines and agency lines, the operational excellence that goes into the actual bust, and then the interrogations, the investigations and prosecutions,” he said.
He said such operations matter well beyond Nigeria’s borders, since narcotics trafficking is a global, border-defying trade.
“When I am talking to American audiences in the United States, I tell them there’s virtually no other issue of foreign policy that so tangibly affects the lives of every community, virtually every family across our country, than narcotics,” Gonzales said.
“And the reality of the narcotics trade is international. It knows no boundaries, very few constraints. And so, the work that INL does in the United States and globally and the work that NDLEA does fundamentally delivers for the Nigerian people, for the American people,” he added.
He said the US has more than four decades of experience backing counter-narcotics operations worldwide through training and equipment, and that shifting trafficking patterns demand closer cooperation between countries.
Mexico Accepts Omokri as Nigeria’s New Ambassador
This warning curiously comes at a time when the Government of Mexico finally accepted the appointment of Reno Omokri as Nigeria’s ambassador to the Central American country.
Omokri announced the news on his 𝕏 handle on Tuesday, saying the Chargé d’Affaires of the Mexican Embassy in Abuja, José Manuel Briseño Flores, formally presented the agrément to Nigeria's Director of Protocol, Ambassador Babagana Wakil.
An agrément is the diplomatic document through which a host country formally approves a proposed ambassador before they can take up their post.
Omokri’s accreditation also covers Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, meaning he will represent Nigeria in all three countries from his base in Mexico City.
“To God be the glory, the Chargé d’affaires of the Embassy of the United Mexican States in Abuja, Mr José Manuel Briseño Flores, today in Abuja delivered the agrément from the Government of the United Mexican States accepting me, Bemigho Reno Omokri, to serve as Ambassador Extraordinaire and Plenipotentiary of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the United Mexican States, with concurrent accreditation to the Republic of Guatemala, the Republic of Honduras, and the Republic of Nicaragua,” Omokri wrote.
From Critic To Envoy: Omokri’s Unlikely Diplomatic Path
Omokri was among the ambassadorial nominees President Bola Tinubu sent to the Senate in November 2025.
Others on that list included former Minister of Aviation Femi Fani-Kayode and former Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Mahmood Yakubu.
The Senate screened and confirmed the nominees in December 2025.
On March 6, 2026, the President approved the posting of 65 ambassadors-designate and high commissioners to their respective missions, with Omokri assigned to Mexico City.
The appointment carries an added layer of irony, given Omokri’s history as a vocal critic of Tinubu ahead of the 2023 election.
At the time, Omokri repeatedly described Tinubu as tainted by an alleged link to illicit narcotics trade in the United States, an apparent reference to a 1990s US court case in which Tinubu forfeited more than $400,000 in exchange for the discontinuation of a criminal case against him.
Omokri’s new diplomatic role places him representing the same administration whose alleged drug-related past he once used as a central line of political attack.
