Engineer Accousted As Pressure Machine Turned Drug Carrier
…As Operatives Arrest 65-year-old Grandma with Apiods in Lagos
Stella Peters
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a suspected drug trafficker, Egwu Inya, who claims to be a building engineer while attempting to take delivery of illicit consignments concealed in pressure machines imported from South Africa.
In a statement released on Sunday by the spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, the 42-year-old Egwu was arrested last Monday at Okeyson motor park Enugu when he showed up to collect three units of pressure machines inside which were hidden parcels of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, weighing 7.4 kilograms.
Babafemi said the consignments had arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos import shed, on 29 November 2024. Following credible intelligence, the agency’s MMIA Strategic Command officers monitored the shipment as it passed through clearing processes to a logistics company’s warehouse outside the airport, where it was to be collected by the consignee.
He noted that the importer changed the collection point to Enugu at the last minute. As a result, NDLEA operatives arrested Egwu when he showed up to collect the consignments in a follow-up operation in Enugu.
In another clampdown, no fewer than 511,000 pills of tramadol were recovered from a Siena vehicle at Hildi, Askira Uba way in Adamawa state by NDLEA operatives on patrol along the road in the early hours of last Friday. The vehicle’s occupants were said to have made a detour on sighting the NDLEA team and, after a distance, abandoned the car with the consignments after noticing the operatives were on their heels.
In Ekiti state, two suspects, Olanrewaju Alale, 48, and Babatunde Ijadahun, 55, were arrested along Ise- Emure road in a J5 bus marked EPE 958 XJ while transporting 108 jumbo bags of cannabis weighing 1,323 kilograms to Owo, Ondo state from where they claimed the consignment will be moved to the North for distribution.
Another suspect, Adekunle Yusuf, 33, was nabbed by NDLEA operatives with 704 kilograms of the same psychoactive substance concealed in white sacks last Friday at Idere Road, Igboora, Oyo state.
In Lagos, a grandmother, 65-year-old Ramata Adeyemo, was on Friday arrested by NDLEA operatives at 62 Odunfa Street, Lagos Island, where 20.6 liters of codeine-based syrup were recovered from her. Also arrested in Lagos was Alhaji Lawan Manga, who was picked up at Ogundana Street, Ikeja, last Thursday, while 4.7 kilograms of cannabis and 1.3 kilograms of tramadol were recovered from him.
Babafemi said that with the same vigor, the agency’s commands and formations across the country continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitization lectures to schools, worship centers, workplaces, and communities, among others, in the past week.
Meanwhile, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (Rtd), while commending the officers and men of MMIA, Adamawa, Ekiti, Lagos, and Oyo commands of the agency for the arrests and seizures, stated that their operational successes and those of their compatriots across the country, especially their balanced approach to drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction efforts are well appreciated.
