y Omoyeni Ojeifo
A 25-year-old newlywed businessman is in NDLEA custody after being caught with 72 wraps of cocaine in his stomach at Enugu’s Akanu Ibiam International Airport.
Lovely Chukwulobelu was intercepted on Thursday, September 25, at the airport’s departure hall while trying to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Portugal via Addis Ababa.
NDLEA Director, Media and Advocacy, Mr Femi Babafemi, provided details of the operations in an emailed statement to PerSecondNews on Sunday.
According to the agency, he ingested a total of 72 wraps of the Class A illicit drug after being placed under excretion observation.
During interrogation, Chukwulobelu, who claimed he operated a car decoration business at the Trade Fair Complex in Ojo, Lagos, before relocating to Portugal in May 2023, said he returned to Nigeria recently for his wedding.
He got married on September 13 and told NDLEA operatives that he resorted to drug trafficking to offset expenses incurred during the wedding.
Meanwhile, at the import shed of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja, Lagos, NDLEA operatives on Tuesday, September 22, uncovered one of the year’s biggest opioid hauls during a joint examination of three monitored consignments.
The operation led to the seizure of 2,550,000 pills of Tramaking 225mg, Tramaking 250mg and Royal Tapentadol 250mg, with a combined gross weight of 1,640.55 kilogrammes.
The consignments were imported from India and Bangladesh through Qatar Airways, RwandAir and Ethiopian Airlines.
Similarly, in Bauchi, NDLEA officers arrested Umar Hamidu, 35, and Abdulkarim Salihu, 45, along the Maiduguri bypass with 300 compressed blocks of skunk, a strain of cannabis weighing 262.5kg, concealed in the false bottom of a truck marked MUB757 YH.
In a separate development in Edo State, two cannabis farms with a combined estimated yield of 1,360.23 kilogrammes at Eko Camp, Ilushi, were destroyed by NDLEA officers supported by soldiers on Wednesday, September 23.
Elsewhere in Lagos State, two women, Odumabo Kehinde, 36, and Obiekwe Chioma, 40, were arrested on Saturday, September 26, during a raid on Anifowoshe Street, Mushin, where 3.4 kilogrammes of skunk were recovered.
On the same day, at the Ebute-Ero motor park, NDLEA officers also intercepted 58-year-old Ugwu Johnson with 5.920 kilogrammes of skunk, 2,400 ampoules of pentazocine injection, 8,400 tablets of nitrazepam and 40,000 pills of tramadol.
In another interdiction, two Togolese nationals, Yinusa Abdulsamad, 35, and Fatai Baba, 33, were nabbed by NDLEA officers on Saturday, September 26, at Iganna-Ilero Road, Iganna, Oyo State, with 305.6kg of skunk concealed in two pick-up vans used for a cross-border trafficking racket, moving Ghanaian-sourced cannabis into Nigeria through the Oyo axis.
At the Seme border in Badagry, Lagos, five suspects were arrested with 420 cartons of nitrous oxide, popularly known as laughing gas, weighing 1,688.4 kilogrammes.
The agency identified the suspects as Kingsley John, 40; John Chibuike Okeke, 44; Lamidi Ismaila, 40; Babatunde Samuel, 42; and Afeesu Idowu, 47.
Two vehicles used in conveying the consignment from the border into Lagos were also recovered.
Beyond the seizures and arrests, NDLEA Commands and formations across the country continued their War Against Drug Abuse sensitisation activities in schools, worship centres, workplaces and communities.
The Delta Ports Command also paid a WADA advocacy visit to His Royal Majesty, Ogiame Atuwatshe III, the Olu of Warri, Delta State, among others.
Retired Brig.-Gen. Mohammed Buba Marwa, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, commended officers and men of the MMIA, AIIA, Lagos, Oyo, Edo, Seme and Bauchi Commands.
He tasked them and their colleagues across the country with sustaining the ongoing balanced approach to the agency’s drug control efforts.
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