…arrests insurgents’ drug suppliers in Borno
A six-month-pregnant lady, a mother of three, and three other women have been arrested in major operations by the operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), leading to the confiscation of over 7,609 kilograms of various illicit drugs in eight states.
This arrest made it a total of 24 suspected drug traffickers and dealers including a 42-year-old man taking thousands of concealed opioid pills to insurgents’ enclave in Banki area of Borno State.
This was disclosed in a statement on Sunday by Femi Babafemi, NDLEA spokesman, while listing the achievements of the anti-narcotics agency in the past week.
Babafemi said the bulk of the seizure was made in Nasarawa State where NDLEA operatives acting on credible intelligence on Sunday February 4, intercepted a truck marked Lagos JJJ 64 YC conveying 367 jumbo bags of cannabis sativa weighing 4,037 kilograms from Akure, Ondo State, to be delivered at Shabu area of Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital. Three suspects, Shuaibu Yahaya Liman, 35; Monday Audu, 33, and Linus Samuel, 42, were arrested in connection with the seizure.
According to Babafemi, last Monday, operatives in Abuja, FCT arrested one Jibrin Shuaibu, 23, and Prosper Innih, 17, with 169 bags and 80 blocks of compressed cannabis sativa weighing 1,961.5 kilograms concealed in a truck with registration number Ogun WDE 557 XC, noting the truck was intercepted during a stop-and-search operation along Abaji-Abuja highway on their way from Uzeba to Dei-Dei, FCT.
In another operation, operatives in Abuja last Tuesday, arrested a suspect, Abdulhameed Dauda, 27, with 89 kilograms of the same psychoactive substance loaded into his truck in Owo, Ondo State, to be delivered at Gwagwalada in FCT. On the same day, operatives also intercepted driver, Hassan Ade, 30, transporting 696.5 kilograms of the same substance loaded in Idoani, Ondo State, to be delivered at Gwagwalada and Dei-Dei in FCT.
He said a follow up operation led to the arrest of a mother of three children, Mrs. Joy Chukwuka, 42, linked with the consignment.
In Ondo State, apart from the seizure of 633.5 kilograms of cannabis at Eleyere, Ogbese in Akure North Local Government Area, the NDLEA operatives also recovered 59 jumbo bags of same substance loaded in a truck marked GAD 287 XA heading to northern part of Nigeria, he said, noting that detergents were sprayed on the cannabis bags to suppress the smell of the psychoactive weed, while 192 packs of table water were loaded on top to conceal the package.
Not less than 187kg of same substance were seized by operatives at Sapele Road, Benin City, Edo State, while in Kano, NDLEA operatives last Monday arrested 58-year-old Bashir Attahir in Bachirawa area of the state with 216,000 pills of tramadol 250mg, Babafemisaid.
Another suspect, Ejike Moses Nmenme, 47, was nabbed the following day with 25,190 capsules of tramadol and different quantities of rohypnol and codeine syrup along Emir road, Sabon Gari area of the city while the duo of Yusuf Abdullahi Musa, 35, and Yusuf Musa, 28, were nabbed at Gadar Tamburawa, with 1,000 ampoules of tramadol injection last Thursday.
In Borno State, a 42-year-old suspected supplier of illicit drugs to insurgents in Banki, a border town between Nigeria and Cameroon, Ahmad Mohammed, was arrested last Friday at Bama check point. When his luggage was searched 20,000 capsules of tramadol were recovered while on his way to deliver the opioid package in the border town.
He disclosed also that a six-month pregnant woman, Amarachi Akaolisa, 25, and another woman, Ifeoma Iheanyi, 21, were among six suspects arrested for dealing in illicit substances in Oraifite and Umuni-Evili, Aguleri, Anambra State. Others arrested include: Okwuchukwu Chukwuka; Onyedika Ngwu; Ekene Hyginus and Nzomiwu Ikechukwu, and recovered from them were over 6kg of cannabis, tramadol, diazepam and codeine syrup in raids conducted by NDLEA operatives between last Tuesday and Thursday in parts of the state.
He said in Lagos, two ladies: Boluwatife Adebayo and Omolade Adebayo were among suspects arrested during raids in parts of the state last Saturday. While Ogah Adole and Boluwatife Adebayo were arrested at Agidingbi, Ikeja, in connection with 220 grammes of cannabis, 10.6 litres of codeine syrup, and other psychotropic substances, Omolade Adebayo was arrested at Ijesha with various quantities of cannabis, codeine syrup, rohypnol and molly.
Meanwhile, while commending the efforts of the Nasarawa, FCT, Ondo, Kano, Borno, Edo, Anambra and Lagos commands of the agency for jobs well done in the past week, chairman/CEO of NDLEA, Buba Marwa, tasked them and their colleagues across the country to always strive to surpass past feats in their drug supply and drug demand reduction efforts.
