BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested a 67-year-old trafficker, Chukwuemeka Clement, at the Abuja International Airport for ingesting 100 wraps of cocaine, a criminal enterprise he claimed he ventured into to raise enough money to marry a new wife and start life afresh after wasting 30 years of his life in Brazil, Ethiopia and Thailand.
The Director, Media and Advocacy NDLEA, Femi Babafemi said, in a statement on Sunday that, Chukwuemeka Clement was arrested on 3rd October during the inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airlines flight 951 from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and taken for body scan, which revealed multiple pellets in his stomach.
While under observation, Babafemi said, he excreted a total of 100 wraps of cocaine weighing 2.195 kilograms in four excretions and claimed in his statement to have spent 30 years in Brazil, Ethiopia and Thailand, while he was once married, but lost his wife and without a child.
He said that was why he decided to go into drug trafficking to raise enough money to marry a new wife and start life afresh.
On the same 3rd October, operatives of the NDLEA at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, intercepted a 45-year-old woman, Bilkisu Mohammed Bello while preparing to board a Saudi Airlines flight to Saudi Arabia.
While being interviewed, she confessed that pellets of cocaine given to her to swallow before her flight were kept in a house in Farawa area of Kano.
When she led NDLEA officers to the house, 52 wraps of the illicit substance with a total weight of 767 grams were recovered.
Meanwhile, NDLEA operatives supported by officers and men of the Nigerian Army, Civil Defence Corps, and Amotekun personnel on Tuesday, 3rd October stormed Jamestown, in Ogunmakin, Obafemi Owode local government area of Ogun State where they located and destroyed 10.38 tonnes of cannabis sativa covering over 4.152 hectares.
While on their way back from the operation, the team also intercepted a truck marked FS 548 XN carrying a 40ft container loaded with logs of wood.
A search of the container led to the recovery of two bags of cannabis sativa weighing 20kgs while six suspects: Ahmed Yusuf, Olaniyi Babatunde, Adedeji Babatunde, Richard John, Osolale Olamilekan and Abdulazeez Saied, in the truck, were arrested.
In the same vein, operatives on 1st October raided Obi camp in Owan West LGA, Edo state where 30 sacks of skunk weighing 300kgs and concealed in charcoal were evacuated from an old dilapidated mud house.
Similarly, two cannabis farms measuring 1.179065 hectares at Igbanke forest in Orhionmwon local government area of the state were identified and destroyed on 6th October while four suspects: Tersoo Zaria, Ifeanyi Osai, Moses David, and Daniel Gabriel were arrested.
In Gombe, a suspect, Auwal Bindow was arrested on Friday along Bauchi – Gombe road with 50,000 capsules of tramadol, while in Oyo state, NDLEA operatives on patrol along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway nabbed Anuoluwapo Blessing Iyanu with 52 blocks of compressed pawpaw shaped cannabis sativa weighing 30kgs on 4th October.
