The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, on Sunday, said its operatives at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja, Lagos, intercepted a consignment of Colorado, a very strong strain of cannabis, concealed in boxing kits imported from the United States of America.
According to the agency, a weeklong intelligence-led operation to get the receiver arrested was consummated on Saturday, January 6, following the successful tracking and arrest of 38-year-old Olorunfunmi Saheed Olakunle, who distributes the dangerous psychoactive substance to dealers across Lagos State.
A statement issued on Sunday by Femi Babafemi, the NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, said the consignment had arrived in the country on Monday, 1st January, via Cairo on an Egypt Airlines flight.
NDLEA claimed Olakunle confessed he delivers such consignments to different recipients whenever his childhood friend, US-based Sagir Salami, sends them, disclosing that the latest shipment has a total weight of 1.80 kilograms.
Babafemi also announced that a 28-year-old female supplier of ammunition to bandits, Bilkisu Suleman, came top on the list of 12 other suspects arrested by NDLEA operatives in new year interdiction operations in Kaduna, Lagos, Niger, Kogi, Kano, Borno, and Osun states.
According to the statement, Bilkisu was arrested on Wednesday, 3rd January, by NDLEA officers on patrol along the Zaria-Kano expressway in possession of 249 rounds of 7.62 mm live ammunition concealed in a black nylon bag kept in her lady’s handbag.
NDLEA alleged she was on her way to deliver the ammunition to an identified bandit in Kakumi village, Katsina State, when she was nabbed, after which she was transferred to the Kaduna State Command of the Nigeria Police Force for further investigation.
Announcing other interceptions made by the NDLEA, Babafemi said, “The military authorities at the Bonny camp cantonment in Lagos on Tuesday 2nd January transferred a suspect, Francis Suru, 37 and 63 jumbo bags of Ghana Loud, a strain of cannabis, weighing 2,104.2 kilograms and a truck to the Lagos state command of NDLEA.
“The suspect and the drug exhibits were earlier intercepted by NDLEA officers on 12th December 2023 close to the gate of the military cantonment in Bonny Camp, Victoria Island. Some armed escorts however resorted to sporadic shooting to obstruct the operation, a development which attracted soldiers from the cantonment, who eventually intervened and took custody of the consignment and suspect before transferring them to the Agency.
“In the same vein, NDLEA operatives in Niger state on Thursday 5th January during a stop and search operation along Suleja-Kaduna road intercepted a J5 bus coming from Ondo state to Zaria, Kaduna state with twenty-three (23) bags of cannabis sativa weighing 219.5kg. Two suspects: Umar Musa, 26 and Isachiru Abubakar were arrested in connection with the seizure.
“While a female drug trafficker, Queen Onyema, 27, was arrested on Saturday 6th January in a commercial bus enroute Abuja along Okene-Lokoja expressway with 12 compressed blocks of cannabis weighing 4.6kg and 0.046kg designer drugs concealed in an indomie carton, another suspect Mubarak Sani, 20, was nabbed at Gadar Tamburawa area of Kano on Monday 1st January with 445.9k kilograms of the same psychoactive substance.”
Meanwhile, the anti-narcotic agency said four suspects: Zanna Alhaji Dala, 32; Musa Umar, 21; Mushe Ibrahim, 23, and Shehu Idris, 19, were arrested at Pomfomari, Borno State, with 60kg cannabis.
This is even as NDLEA operatives on patrol along Osogbo-Ode Omu road on New Year Day, Monday 1st January, intercepted a consignment of illicit drugs sent through waybill from Lagos to Osogbo.
According to Babafemi, a follow-up operation led to the arrest of Ibrahim Olawale, 43, stating that drugs recovered include: cannabis sativa 10.8kg; Loud 150 grams; Colorado 19 grams; Molly 5 grams, totalling 10.974kg.
He also stated that a digital scale, N18,000 monetary exhibit and customized wrapping papers for Colorado were also seized.
Reacting to the development, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd) commended the arrests and seizures of the past week by officers and men of the MMIA, Lagos, Niger, Kogi, Kano, Borno, and Osun Commands.
Marwa charged them and their compatriots across all formations of the Agency to continue to remain vigilant and double their drug demand reduction as well as drug supply reduction efforts in the new year.
