Video: NDLEA arrests 101-year-old woman, seizes N4.4bn Thai Loud at Lagos ports

Abdullateef Fowewe

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested a 101-year-old woman, Esther Ogunmabo, for allegedly selling cannabis in Ogun State, while also intercepting cocaine concealed in cassava flour and seizing synthetic cannabis worth more than N4.4 billion at the Apapa and Lekki ports in Lagos.

NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, said on Sunday that the operations represented “significant breakthroughs across the country’s land and maritime borders,” including the agency’s first seizure of illicit drugs allegedly shipped from Thailand through Nigeria’s maritime corridor.

Ogunmabo was arrested in Ilisan on August 15 with 90 grams of skunk packaged in retail sachets.

She reportedly told operatives that she turned to drug dealing after fire destroyed her provisions shop, alleging that her Lagos-based daughter supplied her with the substance every four days.

NDLEA Chairman, Brig.-Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), directed that she be granted bail and placed on counselling due to her age, while her daughter was arrested.

In Akwa Ibom, operatives intercepted a boat allegedly transporting drugs to fishing settlements in Cameroon and arrested three suspects with a combined 42.622kg of narcotics, including 20 grams of cocaine hidden in a wrap of edible cassava flour, popularly called fufu.

At Apapa Port, officers discovered 1,090.5kg of Thai Loud concealed in a container declared to contain dry fish, rice, vehicle parts, and other goods.

Another 400kg was recovered from a monitored container at Lekki Deep Sea Port, hidden among A4 paper.

The two seizures had a combined estimated street value of over N4.4 billion, according to the agency.

Other operations led to the interception of 24,410 tramadol pills in Abuja, the destruction of 10,000kg of cannabis on a four-hectare farm in Ondo State, and arrests linked to methamphetamine, skunk, Loud, codeine and other controlled substances across Oyo, Kano, Kwara, Abia, and Lagos states.

Babafemi said Marwa commended the commands involved and urged personnel to sustain the agency’s “balanced approach” to drug control efforts.