Illicit drug: NDLEA nabs businessmen, Canada-based nurse in Lagos
Abdullateef Fowewe
Two businessmen, Ihejirika Okechukwu Emmanuel, and Iwuagwu Ikedi Victory, along with a Canada-based nurse, Usman Grace Khadijat Olami, have been arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, Lagos for attempting to smuggle cocaine pellets and parcels of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis.
This was contained in a statement issued on Sunday, by the NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi.
Babafemi stated that Ihejirika who’s a frequent traveller to Thailand who claims to import fish into Nigeria, was arrested on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, while trying to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Thailand via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A body scan revealed that he had ingested cocaine.
He wrote, “As a result, he was placed under excretion observation during which he expelled five big egg size wraps of cocaine weighing 400 grams. In his statement, the 51-year-old suspect confessed that he was to be paid upon successful delivery of the drug consignment in Thailand. He said he needed the money to boost his fish importation business.”
In another development, the operatives of NDLEA at the Lagos airport on Thursday, October, 17 intercepted a 26-year-old businessman Iwuagwu Ikedi Victory coming from Brazil via Addis Ababa during the inward clearance of passengers on an Ethiopian Airlines flight.
According to the statement, the suspect’s body scan revealed ingestion of illicit drugs. When he was put under observation, he excreted a pellet of cocaine weighing 22 grams.
The statement reads partly, “He however confessed that he ingested 30 wraps of the illicit drug in Brazil but excreted 29 pellets in Addis Ababa, where he handed them over to another person. The suspect revealed that he was to be paid N2.5 million for trafficking the drug.”
The statement confirmed that a Nigerian Canadian nurse Usman Grace Khadijat Olami was apprehended on October 4, by NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport during the inward clearance of Air France passengers from Toronto, Canada via Paris.
However, during a search of her luggage, a total of 70 parcels of Canadian Loud, weighing 35.70kg were recovered from her.
In her remark, she claimed she was in Nigeria to meet her boyfriend who instructed her to come with the large consignment of the highly sought-after synthetic cannabis.
The statement further stresses, “At the seaports, a total of 162,351 bottles of codeine-based syrup were intercepted from two containers at the Apapa seaport in Lagos by NDLEA operatives during a joint examination of two containers with men of the Customs Service and other security agencies on Tuesday 15th October, not less than Seven Million Two Hundred Thousand (7,200,000) pills of Royal 225mg Tapentadol and Carisoprodol worth Three Billion Six Hundred Million Naira (N3,600,000,000) in street value were seized from a watch-listed container from India at Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, Rivers state on Tuesday 15th October.
“In the same container, 780 cartons of chlorphenamine containing Fifteen Million Six Hundred Thousand (15,600,000) pills of the opioid, were also recovered. From two other watch-listed containers equally searched at the port in Onne, a total of 337,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup worth two billion three hundred and fifty-nine million naira (N2,359,000,000) were recovered from them on Tuesday 15th and Thursday 17th October. This brings the total value of the seized Tapentadol, Carisoprodol, and Codeine consignments at the two seaports to Seven Billion Ninety-Five Million Four Hundred and Fifty-Seven Thousand Naira (N7,095,457,000).”
The NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (Rtd), lauded the agency operatives noting that their operational successes are well appreciated.
“While commending the officers and men of MMIA, PHPC, Apapa, Lagos, Bauchi, Ondo, and Edo Commands of the Agency for the arrests and seizures, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd) stated that their operational successes and those of their compatriots across the country especially their balanced approach to drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction efforts are well appreciated.”
