In the ongoing war against drug abuse, Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have foiled attempts by a drug cartel to smuggle into Nigeria 2, 465, 000 tablets of the pharmaceutical opioid in 225mg and 250mg, weighing 2,356kgs with an estimated street value of N1, 040, 000, 000 through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos.
NDLEA Director, Media and Advocacy, Mr. Femi Babafemi, who made the disclosure in a statement, yesterday, said the seizure of the drug, last Friday, came barely a week after about 13.5 million pills of the same opioid worth over N8.8 billion were recovered by the agency’s operatives from one of the mansions of a billionaire drug baron in the highbrow residential estate, Victoria Garden City (VGC), Lekki, Lagos.
Meanwhile, in Kaduna State, a female drug dealer, Peace Ayuba, was arrested last Friday, at Kakau Gonin Gora with 78 bags of cannabis sativa weighing 849.5kgs, while operatives in Sokoto State arrested Onyeka Owo, 28, with 443 bottles of codeine based syrup.
In a related development, ten months after his arrest by NDLEA, a notorious drug dealer in the Alaba Rago area of Ojo, Lagos, Alhaji Surajo Mohammed, has been convicted and sentenced to seven years imprisonment by the Federal High Court, Lagos. Surajo was arrested with 941.15kgs cannabis on Monday, December 20, 2021, and arraigned in court in charge . Delivering his judgment last Thursday, the judge gave the convict an option of N7 million fine.
While commending the officers and men of the MMIA, Kaduna, Sokoto and Lagos commands for the feats, Chairman/Chief Executive of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd) urged them and their compatriots across the country to remain steadfast, resolute and unrelenting until the last gram of illicit drugs is taken away from the streets of Nigeria.
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