The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested two suspected drug dealers, Martins Ejiofor, 31, and Bala Mohammed, 33, with 24.450 kilograms of assorted substances meant to be delivered to Gwada, Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State, where bandits from a neighbouring forest buy illicit drugs.
Gwada has one of the two functional markets bordering the forest, where bandits and kidnappers hibernate in Niger State.
Drugs seized from the suspects include codeine, 7.100kg; Diazepam, 6.400kg; and Exol 5, 10.950kg.
The Kwara State NDLEA Command’s highway patrol team intercepted the consignment in a Hiace bus with number plate: Niger 14 B.40NG, belonging to Niger State Transport Authority along the Okolowo (Ilorin)-Jebba Highway on Saturday, June 5, 2021.
A statement on Wednesday by the spokesman for the NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, said Ejiofor had travelled to Lagos with the second suspect to procure the drugs and deliver them to dealers in Gwada.
“During interrogation, he confessed that he had been arrested with over 50 kilograms of cannabis sativa and charged by the Niger State command of the agency in 2020. He completed his one-year jail term in March this year and resumed the nefarious illicit drug business,” Babafemi stated.
Meanwhile, another suspect, Usman Abass, 38, was arrested with 6.8kg cannabis sativa concealed in a sack containing used clothes, which the suspect bought at the Alaba International Market, Lagos.
The suspect, upon interrogation, claimed that one Baba gave him the exhibit to deliver to one Lawali in Daura, Katsina State, before his arrest by operatives attached to the Jebba Area Command during a routine stop-and-search operation.
The NDLEA said Abass confessed that he had once conveyed cannabis sativa to Katsina and that the latest trip was his second.
The statement read in part, “The previous day, Friday, June 4, operatives of the Delta State Command of the agency arrested 20-year-old Chukwujeku Lucky at Ogwashi-Uku, Delta State, with multiple drugs weighing 38.90 kilograms.
“Some of the drugs seized from his apartment, where he serves as a salesman, include 68 blocks of cannabis sativa weighing 38.7kg; 498 pinches of cocaine (50.9 grams); 33 pinches of heroin (4.4 grams); 304 capsules of Tramadol (91 grams); 72 tablets of Swinol (27 grams); and 26 grams of Methamphetamine.
While commending the commanders, officers and men of both the Kwara and Delta state commands for the arrests and seizures, the Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (retd.), said the development would in no small measure reduce the availability of illicit substances to bandits and other criminal elements, who take them as enhancers for their evil enterprise.
He charged them to remain vigilant and continue to acquaint themselves with the latest disingenuous modes of concealment and transportation of illicit drugs by defiant traffickers.