BY MOYINOLUWA BAMIDELE-LUCAS
A 44-year-old father of three, Gabriel Anthony Patrick has been arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja for ingesting 96 pellets of cocaine, which he excreted in the custody of the Agency.
A native of Nike in Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu state, Gabriel was arrested on November 26 during an outward clearance of Turkish Airline at the boarding screening area of the airport enroute Abuja-Istanbul-Madrid.
NDLEA spokesman, Femi Babafemi, said in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, that the suspect had travelled to Germany in 1996 for two years on asylum after which he relocated to Spain in 1999 where he currently holds a residence permit and works as a driver in a food manufacturing company.
He claimed he came into Nigeria on November 17 to sell clothes and car spare parts he shipped to Lagos earlier.
He however said he couldn’t sell his consignments, which cost him 4,000 Euros excluding the cost of shipment because they were priced below the cost price at Ladipo market in Lagos and he needed to travel back to Spain to resume work after the expiration of his annual leave.
This, he said, led him to accept an offer to traffic the drug for which he would be paid 1,500 Euros when he successfully delivers the consignment to someone in Spain.
Gabriel claimed he left Lagos for Enugu to see his family members, and then travelled on November 25 to Onitsha, Anambra State where he was picked from Upper Iweka park at night and taken to a house where he was given the 96 pellets of cocaine to ingest before leaving for Abuja to board his flight to Madrid the following day.
In the same vein, NDLEA operatives at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos have arrested one Okorie Godwin Onyeribe over his attempt to export 21.85kg of cannabis concealed in foodstuff to London, United Kingdom.
He was nabbed at the NAHCO export shed of the airport on December 3.
Five students of American University of Nigeria, Yola, Adamawa and University of Maiduguri, Borno State are among suspects arrested for drug offences in raids operations across nine states in the last week.
Two of the students; Emmanuel Thlama and Jonah Joshua were arrested with 16.750kg cannabis on the night of November 30 when operatives raided a settlement opposite Gate 4 of the University of Maiduguri.
The other three, all AUN undergraduate students: Ekene Asher; Daniel Alkali and Emmanuel Smooth, were arrested at 11:30pm on December 2 after taking delivery of Loud, a strong variant of cannabis ordered by Ekene for them to smoke.
Earlier the same day, operatives also intercepted a motorised concrete mixer truck used to conceal 2000.6kg of cannabis, loaded at Ogbese, Ondo State.
