Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have arrested a 48-year-old businessman, Ifeanyi Orizu, while attempting to board an Air France flight 844 from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja to Paris, France for ingesting 74 wraps of heroin and cocaine.
Orizu was arrested at the boarding gate of the Abuja airport on Sunday, December 22, 2024 during the outward clearance of passengers on Air France.
When he was pulled aside for a body scan, he turned down the request claiming his medical condition would not allow him.
The spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, in a statement on Sunday, said Orizu was thereafter taken into custody for excretion observation during which he excreted a total of 74 wraps of Class A drugs over a period of seven days.
According to the statement, Orizu was said to have claimed he owns a shop at Balogun market, Lagos Island where he sells school and travelling bags, adding that he was promised €3,000 upon successful delivery of the consignment in Paris.
The suspect was said to have revealed that he left his base in Lagos for the Abuja airport to connect his Air France flight to Paris, hoping to escape detection.
Babafemi said in another interdiction effort, operatives of the Marine Command of NDLEA at 2:30am on Christmas Eve intercepted two boats loaded with 1,960 kilogrammes of Ghanaian Loud, a strong strain of cannabis at the Eleko Beach in Lekki area of Lagos.
He said six foreign nationals, who brought the consignments from Ghana, were arrested during the operation.
They include two Ghanaians: Godsway John, 38 and Freedom Kelvin, 33; as well as four Beninese: Chegoun Hounsou, 23; Gadabor Nyameto, 47; Adantg Sasa, 34; and Ayao Kayivi, 21.
In Katsina, a suspect, Ibrahim Shaibu, 35, was arrested in possession of 40 album-size parcels of compressed cannabis sativa weighing 35 kilogrammes on Christmas day at Central Motor Park, Katsina, while another suspect, Umar Ahmed, 47, was nabbed along Zaria-Malumfashi road, Katsina with 27 parcels of same psychoactive substance weighing 13.5 kilogrammes on Saturday.
A 21-year-old suspect, Kosisochukwu Ozigbo, was arrested at new Lagos road Benin City, Edo State when the area was raided last Monday by NDLEA operatives.
Recovered from the suspect included 32,490 pills of tramadol 225mg, 200mg and 100mg; 936 bottles of codeine-based syrup and various quantities of other opioids.
Babafemi said the commands across the country balanced their drug supply reduction operations with War Against Drug Abuse advocacy campaigns to schools, markets, worship centres and communities.
Meanwhile, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (rtd), while commending the efforts of the officers and men of NAIA, Katsina, Edo and Marine commands of the agency for job well done in the past week, tasked them and their compatriots nationwide not to rest on the achievements of 2024 but continue to raise the bar in their offensive action against drug barons and cartels with an equal measure of WADA sensitisation campaigns in the new year.
