Michael Olugbode in Abuja
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a woman and two men in connection with an attempt to smuggle drugs into Oman in fetish bowls.
According to a statement issued yesterday by the spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, operatives of the agency arrested a 27-year-old alleged drug queen, Mrs. Opoola Mujidat, for planting drugs concealed in fetish bowls containing scary native black soap and sponge on two Oman-bound male passengers at the departure hall of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.
Babafemi said the passengers, Raji Kazeem and Akinbobola Omoniyi, were travelling together to Oman, a country in the Middle East, on Ethiopian Airlines flight last Monday when they were intercepted by NDLEA operatives at the airport; a search of their luggage revealed wraps of cannabis sativa hidden in bowls of native black soap and sponge packed into a bag containing food items, which was carried by Kazeem.
He said both Kazeem and Omoniyi immediately alerted the anti-narcotic officers that Mujidat, who was still within the vicinity, gave the bag containing the illicit substance to them at the airport, which prompted her arrest.
Babafemi disclosed that Mujidat, while acknowledging ownership of the load, stated that she brought the luggage for the two passengers to give to her husband in Oman.
He also said Mujidat confessed during preliminary interrogation that the bag containing the food items were packed by her with different items, including the black soap used to conceal the illicit substance.
In other clampdowns across the country, NDLEA operatives in Nasarawa State intercepted over 91 big bags of cannabis weighing 1,029.5 kilogrammes concealed in a truck mounted natural gas tank on Doma road around 500 Housing Estate in Lafia.
A 52-year-old suspect, Ernest Ojieh, was arrested in connection with the seizure on July 9, 2022.
According to Babafemi, this was barely four days after operatives at Agwan Doka, Lafia, seized 38 big bags of the same substance with a total weight of 367 kilogrammes, with two suspects- Abdullahi Iliyasu, 30, and Bashir Mohammed, 29-arrested over the seizure.
In Kaduna and Adamawa States, over half a million pills of pharmaceutical opioids were seized and suspects arrested in raid operations across the two states, while in Kaduna State alone, 294,400 pills of tramadol and diazepam were seized from Shaban Nasir, Aminu Usman and Shamsudeen Hussaini on Abuja-Kaduna expressway, as well as Sa’idu Yahaya and Umar Abubakar, during a follow up operation in Kano last Friday.
In the same vein, over 227,000 different grades of tramadol tablets were seized during the raid of a patent medicine store at Sabon Layi close to Mubi main market, Mubi North Local Government Area of Adamawa State on July 3, 2022.
The suspect, Nasiru Abubakar, 27, was arrested, and drugs including tramadol 250mg (aka Boko Haram); Royal Tramadol 225mg (aka Vectra); Tramaking tramadol 225mg (aka Jan Dara); tramadol 200mg (aka Dogari); and tramadol 100mg (aka Green), were recovered.
He said another suspect, Idris Adamu, 25, was also arrested in a shoe shop in the same Sabon Layi where over 5,000 tablets of tramadol 225mg were recovered from him.
Meanwhile, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (rtd), while commending the officers and men of the MMIA, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Adamawa States Commands for the arrests, seizures and their dexterity, warned drug cartels that no matter the ingenuity of their modes of concealment, the dedicated workforce of the agency would always expose them and their tricks.
