Engineer in NDLEA Custody for Illicit Drug Consignments in Pressure Machines
Michael Olugbode in Abuja
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a suspected drug trafficker, Egwu Inya, who claimed to be a building engineer, while attempting to take delivery of illicit consignments concealed in pressure machines imported from South Africa.
According to a statement issued yesterday by the spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, the 42-year-old Egwu was arrested last Monday at Okeyson motor park in Enugu when he showed up to collect three units of pressure machines with hidden parcels of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, weighing 7.4 kilogrammes.
Babafemi said the consignments had arrived the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos import shed on November 29, 2024, and following credible intelligence, officers of the MMIA Strategic Command of the agency had monitored the shipment pass through clearing processes up to a logistics company’s warehouse outside the airport where it was to be collected by the consignee.
He noted that the importer, however, changed the point of collection to Enugu at the last minute, and as a result, NDLEA operatives in a follow-up operation in Enugu arrested Egwu when he showed up to collect the consignments.
In another clampdown, no fewer than 511,000 pills of tramadol were recovered from a Toyota Siena at Hildi, Askira Uba way in Adamawa State by NDLEA operatives on patrol on the road in the early hours of last Friday. The occupants of the vehicle were said to have made a detour on sighting the NDLEA team and after a distance abandoned the vehicle with the consignments after noticing the operatives were on their heel.
In Ekiti State, two suspects,Olanrewaju Alale, 48, and Babatunde Ijadahun, 55, were arrested on Ise- Emure road in a J5 bus marked EPE 958 XJ while transporting 108 jumbo bags of cannabis weighing 1,323 kilogrammes to Owo, Ondo State from where they claimed the consignment will be moved to the North for distribution.
Another suspect, Adekunle Yusuf, 33, was nabbed by NDLEA operatives with 704 kilogrammes of the same psychoactive substance, concealed in white sacks last Friday at Idere road, Igboora, Oyo State.
Also, in Lagos, a grandmother, 65-year-old Ramata Adeyemo, was last Friday arrested by NDLEA operatives at 62 Odunfa Street, Lagos Island, where 20.6 litres of codeine-based syrup were recovered from her. Also arrested in Lagos was Alhaji Lawan Manga who was picked at Ogundana Street, Ikeja last Thursday while 4.7 kilogrammes cannabis and 1.3 kilogrammes tramadol were recovered from him.
Babafemi said with the same vigour, commands and formations of the agency across the country continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitization lectures 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, Adamawa, Ekiti, Lagos, and Oyo 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.
