The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has intensified its crackdown on drug trafficking, arresting an 80-year-old grandfather, a businesswoman, a Chadian national and a couple in a series of coordinated operations that also led to the seizure of 1.63 million pills of tramadol destined for Kano.
The agency said the massive haul was recorded as operatives sustained efforts to dismantle a transnational drug trafficking syndicate smuggling tramadol from Togo through the Benin Republic into Nigeria.
According to the NDLEA, intelligence-led operations led to the interception of two long trailers travelling along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway with 1,630,000 pills of tramadol 250mg concealed in specially fabricated compartments beneath the cargo floors.
The first truck was intercepted on July 2, where operatives recovered 853,000 pills of tramadol and arrested the 22-year-old driver, Jabir Kabiru. Two days later, on July 4, officers tracked and stopped a second trailer on the same route, recovering another 777,000 pills hidden in a similar compartment and arresting its driver, Muhammed Nuhu, also 22.
NDLEA said investigations established that the two consignments, alongside an earlier seizure of 558,900 tramadol pills on June 21, belonged to the same transnational drug trafficking syndicate operating along the Togo-Benin Republic-Nigeria corridor.
In another major operation, operatives at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, intercepted two consignments of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, weighing a combined 4.7 kilograms.
The drugs arrived from Canada aboard British Airways and Ethiopian Airlines flights in cartons boldly marked “Odugwu.”
Three suspects, including cargo agents Ali Rotimi Samson and Orimolade Oluwagbenga, as well as Edeh Onyeamachi Stanislus, who came to collect the consignments from a logistics company, were initially arrested.
Further investigations led to the arrest of 44-year-old businesswoman Chioma Nneka Mokeme, identified as the owner of the shipments. She was apprehended on July 7 in Surulere, Lagos, in collaboration with the Nigeria Police. Chioma, who said she operates a printing business, allegedly confessed that a friend based in Canada introduced her to the illicit drug trade.
In Rivers State, NDLEA operatives arrested an 80-year-old grandfather, Chika Ugwoji, in Ahoada after recovering 800 grams of skunk from his possession during an operation on July 14.
In Edo State, a couple, Christian Chukwuka, 32, and Nwanneka Christian, 33, were arrested after operatives raided their suspected drug warehouse along Sapele Road in Benin City. Recovered from the warehouse were 22 bags of cannabis sativa weighing 219.5 kilograms and compressed blocks of Canadian Loud with a combined weight of 192.67 kilograms.
Similarly, a Chadian national, Hajara Abdullahi, 38, and her Nigerian accomplice, Abdulkarim Jidda, 44, were arrested in the Apapa area of Lagos after investigations linked them to the seizure of 50,000 pills of tramadol 225mg intercepted in Kogi State on July 12.
Beyond enforcement operations, the NDLEA said its War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) campaign continued across the country with sensitisation lectures delivered to students and staff of Government Day Junior Secondary School, Bakori, Katsina State; Colliery Technical School, Ngwo, Enugu State; Starlight College, Iganmu-Ijora, Lagos State; Community Secondary School, Kono, Rivers State; Odoro High School, Ikole-Ekiti, Ekiti State; and Government Junior Secondary School, Gabasawa, Kano State, among others.
Commending officers and men of the MMIA, Lagos, Rivers, Edo and Kogi Commands for the successful arrests and seizures, NDLEA Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Brig.-Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), said the operations had significantly strengthened the agency’s ongoing efforts to curb drug trafficking and abuse across Nigeria.
He urged officers to remain vigilant and sustain the momentum in the fight against illicit drugs across the country.
