Operatives from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have detained two businessmen, Ihejirika Emmanuel and Iwuagwu Victory, over suspected drug trafficking.
Ihejirika, who often travels to Thailand under the guise of importing fish into Nigeria, was apprehended on October 15, 2024, while trying to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Thailand via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
According to a statement by NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi, a body scan revealed that Ihejirika had swallowed illicit drugs, later confirmed to be cocaine. Babafemi stated, “He was placed under observation, during which he expelled five large wraps of cocaine, weighing a total of 400 grams. The 51-year-old suspect confessed that he expected payment upon successful delivery of the drugs in Thailand, intending to use the money to boost his fish importation business.”
Babafemi further disclosed that Iwuagwu Victory was arrested at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Ikeja, Lagos, upon arriving from Brazil via Addis Ababa. A body scan also revealed he had ingested drugs, excreting a cocaine pellet weighing 22 grams. Babafemi added, “He admitted to ingesting 30 wraps of the drug in Brazil, excreting 29 pellets in Addis Ababa, where he handed them over to another person. He was promised ₦2.5 million for trafficking the drugs.”
Additionally, NDLEA officers arrested Nigerian-Canadian nurse Usman Grace Khadijat Olami on October 4 at Lagos airport, finding 70 parcels of Canadian Loud weighing 35.70 kg in her luggage. She claimed during questioning that she was in Nigeria to meet her boyfriend, who instructed her to bring the synthetic cannabis.
At seaports, NDLEA seized 162,351 bottles of codeine-based syrup from two containers at Apapa seaport in Lagos, along with significant quantities of Tapentadol, Carisoprodol, and chlorphenamine. In Bauchi State, a suspect named Sunday Ogenyi was arrested with 76,600 pills of tramadol. Operations in Ondo State led to the arrest of three suspects with 672 kg of cannabis, while a raid in Edo State destroyed over 10,590 kg of cannabis.
In Lagos, NDLEA operatives apprehended Andrew Joseph Anoriode with 3 kg of methamphetamine and 1.90 kg of cannabis on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, and recovered 241 kg of methamphetamine in Badagry. A suspected methamphetamine producer, Agbeiboh Oscar, was also arrested with 265 grams of methamphetamAine and precursor chemicals in Abule Osun.A5
