A drug kingpin wanted for attempts to ship illicit drug consignments to the United Kingdom tops the list of arrests made by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA through interdiction operations that led to the seizure of four tons of illicit substances in the past week.
Obiorah Chigozie Samuel has been on the wanted list of the agency since September 15, 2023, when a consignment of 1.500 kg of skunk concealed in flour going to London, UK, was intercepted at the SAHCO export shed of Murtala Mohammed International Airport, MMIA Ikeja Lagos, and his freight agent, Nworah Adaugo Precious, was arrested.
Convinced that the 1.500kg consignment had sailed through, Obiorah walked into the agency’s dragnet on Thursday, September 28th, when he personally brought another tranche of 2.00kg concealed in cartons to the airport for shipment to the UK. In his interview, Obiorah claimed he was into shoe sales in Lagos before venturing into the illicit drug business.
Meanwhile, operatives of the Federal Capital Territory Command of the Agency intercepted a container truck with registration number BD G41 XM coming from Lagos to Kano in the Gwagwalada area of the FCT on Friday, September 29th. No less than 1,188 kilograms of skunk loaded at Owo, Ondo State, and hidden under cartons of tooth paste were recovered from the truck, and its driver, Amafan Fattison, 28, was arrested.
In the same vein, NDLEA officers in Bayelsa State seized 432 kg of the same substance from an abandoned J5 bus along Saipem Road, Opolo, Yenagoa, on September 27th. The vehicle was also recovered from the scene for further investigation.
In Kano, a septuagenarian grandpa, Ado Mai Unguwa, 70, was arrested on Saturday, September 30th, with 143.2 kg of skunk in Dindere village, Tofa LGA, while operatives in Enugu the same day recovered 110.6 kg of the same substance from a locked-up shop at Aria New Market.
Operatives in Lagos also stormed the notorious Idi-Oro drug enclave in Mushin on September 30th, where they seized 212.5 kg of cannabis sativa belonging to a wanted drug lord. This is even as NDLEA officers in Kwara state recovered 104 kg of skunk from a Toyota Camry car in the Offa area of the state, while a Chadian, Mohammed Ibrahim, 25, was nabbed at the Mafa checkpoint in Borno state with 11.8 kg of the same substance on Monday, September 25th.
In Plateau, the state police command, in the spirit of inter-agency collaboration, transferred four suspects: Yusuf Akim, Frank Gah, Jackson Ejeh, and Joseph Utsu, and 1,978 kg of cannabis recovered from them to the state command of NDLEA, while in Cross River, operatives seized 40,000 ampules of pentazocine injection from two suspects: Fajulugbe Adeshola Temitayo, 35, and Nnaorji Agwe Solomon, 54, at Mobil by MCC Road, Calabar.
Also in Kogi state, NDLEA officers arrested a suspect, Ifeanyi Odoh, 25, on September 27th, with 59,867 pills of opioids, including Tramadol, and 4.03 kg of cannabis sativa in the Idah area of the state.
War Against Drug Abuse (WADA, advocacy activities have equally continued across the country in the past week. Some of them include: WADA advocacy visit to the Director/CEO, Nigeria French Village, Badagry, Lagos, Prof. Lateef Babatunde Ayeleru by the Seme Special Area Command of NDLEA; WADA sensitization lecture at Ar-Rahmania College of Health Sciences, Minna, Niger State; WADA advocacy lecture at Pentecostal Academy, Aba, Abia State; and WADA sensitization lecture for students and staff of the School of Nursing, Eket, Akwa Ibom State, among others.
While commending the officers and men of the MMIA, Lagos, FCT, Bayelsa, Borno, Kogi, Kwara, Cross River, Borno, and Enugu Commands of the Agency for the arrests and seizures of the past week, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd), equally praised their counterparts in all the commands across the country for ensuring a fair balance between their drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction efforts.
