NDLEA Intercepts over N7bn Worth of Opioids at Apapa, Onne Seaports
Michael Olugbode in Abuja
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested two businessmen, Ihejirika Okechukwu and Iwuagwu Ikedi as well as a Canada-based nurse, Usman Olami, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, for attempting to import and export cocaine pellets and parcels of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, through the airport.
A statement issued by the spokesman of the NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, yesterday said Ihejirika, who have been a frequent visitor to Thailand from where he claims to be importing fish into Nigeria, was arrested last Tuesday while attempting to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Thailand via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Babafemi said when he was taken for body scan, the result showed he ingested illicit drug which proved to be cocaine, and as a result, he was placed under excretion observation during which he digested five big egg size wraps of cocaine weighing 400 grammes.
In his statement, Babafemi said the 51-year-old suspect confessed that he was to be paid upon successful delivery of the drug consignment in Thailand.
Adding that he took the job to raise money to boost his fish importation business.
In the same vein, NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport last Thursday intercepted a 26-year-old businessman Iwuagwu Ikedi coming from Brazil via Addis Ababa during the inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airlines flight.
According to Babafemi, Iwuagwu body scan revealed ingestion of illicit drug which made him to be placed under observation, where he excreted a pellet of cocaine weighing 22 grammes.
He was said to have confessed that he ingested 30 wraps of the illicit drug in Brazil but excreted 29 pellets in Addis Ababa, where he handed them over to another person, he equally revealed that he was to be paid N2.5 million for trafficking the drug.
A Nigerian Canadian nurse Usman Olami was on 4th October arrested by NDLEA officers at the Lagos airport during the inward clearance of Air France passengers from Toronto, Canada via Paris. During a search of her luggage, a total of 70 parcels of Canadian Loud, weighing 35.7 kilogrammes were recovered from her.
Babafemi said during her interrogation, she claimed she was in Nigeria to meet her boyfriend who instructed her to come with the large consignment of the highly sought-after synthetic cannabis.
At the seaports, Babafemi said a total of 162,351 bottles of codeine based syrup were intercepted from two containers at the Apapa seaport in Lagos by NDLEA operatives during a joint examination of two containers with men of the Customs Service and other security agencies last Tuesday while not less than N7.2 million pills of Royal 225mg Tapentadol and Carisoprodol worth N3.6 million in street value were seized from a watch-listed container from India at Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, Rivers state last Tuesday.
In the same container, 780 cartons of chlorphenamine containing 15.6 million pills of the opioid, were also recovered. From two other watch-listed containers equally searched at the port in Onne, a total of 337,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup worth about N2.4 billion were recovered from them last Tuesday and Thursday, bringing the total value of the seized Tapentadol, Carisoprodol and Codeine consignments at the two seaports about N7.1 billion.
In Bauchi State, a suspect, Sunday Ogenyi, 33, was arrested on Bauchi-Jos road with 76,600 pills of tramadol concealed in false compartments of his Toyota Sienna vehicle marked Enugu JRV 341 ZY, while NDLEA operatives in Ondo state last Tuesday arrested three suspects: Goddey Obizuo; Samuel Aniete; and Kuffrey Aniete at Afo village where 672 kilogrammes cannabis sativa was seized from them.
A raid at Illushi forest in Esan South East LGA, Edo state led to the destruction of 10,590.36 kilogrammes cannabis spread on 4.236144 hectares of farmland. Suspects arrested during the operation include: Benson Upuoni, 65; and Sunday Nwaeboyi, 35.
In Lagos, NDLEA operatives on Tuesday 15th October arrested Andrew Anoriode with 3 kilogrammes methamphetamine and 1.9 kilogrammes cannabis along Lagos – Ibadan expressway while 241 kilogrammes of same substance was recovered at Gbaji, Badagry area of the state. A suspected meth cook, Agbeiboh Oscar, was nabbed same Tuesday at Abule Osun with 265 grammes of methamphetamine and different quantities of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of methamphetamine and others.
Babafemi said with the same vigour, commands and formations of the agency across the country continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitization activities to schools, worship centres, work places and communities among others in the past week.
Meanwhile, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (rtd), while commending the officers and men of MMIA, PHPC, Apapa, Lagos, Bauchi, Ondo, and Edo Commands of the agency for the arrests and seizures, stated that their operational successes and those of their compatriots across the country, especially their balanced approach to drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction efforts, are well appreciated.
