After months of intelligence gathering and painstaking surveillance, operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have smashed two major cross-border drug trafficking syndicates with cocaine and opioids worth billions of naira recovered from them, while six leaders of the cartels were arrested in different parts of the country.
The Director of Media and Advocacy of the NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, made this known in a statement he issued to the media on Sunday.
Babafemi revealed that the syndicates, which comprise Nigerians based in Mubi, Adamawa State; Onitsha, Anambra State; Lagos State; as well as Cameroonians, came under NDLEA radar after they were suspected of being major suppliers of drugs to terror groups operating in Nigeria and Cameroon.
Leaders of the syndicates so far arrested include: Ibrahim Bawuro, Najib Ibrahim, Ibrahim Umar, Nelson Udechukwu Anayo, Ezeh Amaechi Martin, and Adejumo Elijah Ishola.
Intelligence gathered revealed that some psychoactive substances, including tramadol, were often sourced by Bawuro and Ibrahim from Anayo, a notorious drug dealer in Onitsha, and thereafter packed and concealed in vehicles in the premises of Martin, an associate of Udechukwu.
The duo of Bawuro and Ibrahim will thereafter transport the drugs from Onitsha to Yola and subsequently to other parts of the North and Cameroon in specially constructed false compartments of vehicles, which travel from the East to the North at night.
On October 7, 2024, Bawuro and Ibrahim were trailed from Onitsha where they had gone to buy another consignment and eventually arrested in Taraba State the following day, October 8, while a total of 276,500 pills of tramadol were recovered from a Toyota Avensis saloon car, marked: DKA 57 TT, which they abandoned on the Jalingo-Yola Expressway when they noticed NDLEA operatives were on their trail.
Follow up operations were subsequently carried out in Delta and Anambra States, where Martin and Anayo were arrested by operatives of the NDLEA Directorate of Intelligence, which coordinated the whole effort with their counterparts in Taraba, Adamawa, Delta and Anambra States.
Another leader of a different syndicate, Adejumo Elijah Ishola, 37, was arrested by operatives of a special operation unit of the Agency on November 5 at Seme border in Lagos on his way from Ghana with 3.3 kilograms of cocaine and 600grams of synthetic cannabis.
This followed months of intelligence and surveillance on his cross-border criminal activities.
Meanwhile, NDLEA operatives in Apapa seaport Lagos on November 6 intercepted 31.75 million pills of 240mg Voltron, a controlled opioid, packaged and concealed in a container imported from India, as diclofenac sodium 100mg tablets.
The discovery was made during a joint examination of the container with men of Nigeria Customs Service and other security agencies.
At the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos State import shed, NDLEA officers on November 5 intercepted a 700grams consignment of Loud, a strong strain of cannabis.
Also Read:
- TCN restores power supply to Bayelsa after four months
- CBN clarifies staff early exit exercise
- Travellers killed after passing over explosives allegedly planted by bandits on Zamfara road
- Ododo presents N582.4b 2025 Budget to Kogi Assembly
- We received N80,000 minimum wage in November – Enugu workers
A software engineer, Olu Marshal, who showed up to collect the package, was promptly arrested and a follow up search of his home in Lekki area of Lagos State led to the recovery of some drug paraphernalia, including a cannabis crusher.
Attempt by another suspect, Orji Ogbonna Nnaorji, to send 32.50kg bottles of codeine syrup and 5.70kg cannabis to London, United Kingdom, concealed in tiger nuts cargo through the export shed of the Lagos airport was frustrated by NDLEA operatives on November 8.
A follow up operation led to the arrest of Orji at his warehouse in Ajao Estate, Lagos.
In Kwara State, no less than 162,800 pills of opioids were seized by NDLEA operatives from four suspects during interdiction operations in parts of the state.
While 112,200 tablets of tramadol were recovered from Wahab Alao Saliu, 18,900 tablets of same opioid were recovered from Dalha Musa, both at Eiyenkorin area of Ilorin, Kwara State; 29,000 pills of tramadol, 200 ampoules of diazepam and 99 bottles of codeine syrup seized from Ahmed Isiaka, just as 2,500 tabs of tramadol were seized from Ahmed Garba, both at Bode Saadu in Moro Local Government Srea of the state on November 8.
In Abuja, NDLEA operatives in the Federal Capital Territory on November 7 intercepted a truck along Abaji-Kwali Road with 755.50kg of cannabis concealed under empty cartons of noodles.
The truck driver, Lukman Rasheed, 41, claimed that the bags of the psychoactive substance were loaded into the trailer in Ogbese, Ondo State after departing Lagos State with only empty cartons of noodles.
A suspect, Yusuf Abubakar, 43, was arrested by operatives on November 4 at Ibi, Taraba State while conveying to Kano 361 compressed blocks of cannabis weighing 156.95kg in a commercial bus marked WKR 772 XA.
Not less than 245 blocks of same substance with a total weight of 121kg were recovered by NDLEA officers on patrol along Wukari-Ibi Road on November 7.
Two suspects: Hamza Yakubu, 30, and Abdulra’uf Danjuma, 23, were on November 6 arrested at Gidan Manjagab area of Jos, Plateau State with 113 blocks of cannabis sativa weighing 141kg, while a Chadian, Hassan Muhammad Ali, 31, was nabbed on November 5 at Gadar Tamburawa, Zaria-Kano Road, Kano, with 3,000 pills of tramadol 225mg.
While a suspect Ibrahim Adamu was arrested at Jere area of Kaduna State with 35 sacks of cannabis sativa weighing 338.8 kilograms, NDLEA operatives in Edo State on November 8 recovered 1,078kg cannabis at Okhuokhuo-Isi forest and 228kg of same substance at Sabo-Auchi.
In Ondo State, four suspects: Friday Daniel, Patrick Felix, Samuel Agada and Igwe Chukwuka, were arrested at Emure Ile with 672kg cannabis sativa, while 513kg of same substance was seized at Gbodo camp, Ikun Akoko and a total of 4, 908kg cannabis recovered from a suspect Musibau Kosama at Alabi Yellow, Ijoka area of Akure, the Ondo State capital, on November 6.
Across the country, NDLEA Commands continued their War Against Drug Abuse sensitisation lectures and advocacy visits to worship centres, schools, workplaces, palaces of traditional rulers and communities all through the past week.
Instances include WADA sensitisation lecture to students and staff of Park Royal College, Apapa Lagos State; Government Secondary School, Atu, Cross River State; Ladigbolu Grammar School 2, Oyo, Oyo State; Iman Secondary School, Arkilla, Sokoto State; Rosary Girls College, Nise, Anambra State; Havilah Gold Secondary School, Odomola, Epe, Lagos State; while the Edo State command of NDLEA paid a WADA advocacy visit to HRM, Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba N’Edo, Uku Akpolokpolo Oba Ewuare II.
While commending the officers and men of DI, SIU, Apapa, MMIA, FCT, Taraba, Kwara, Plateau, Kano, Kaduna, Edo, and Ondo States Commands of the Agency for the arrests and seizures of the past week, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the NDLEA, Brigadier General Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd), also applauded their compatriots in all the commands across the country for intensifying the WADA sensitisation lectures and advocacy messages to every part of their areas of responsibility.