The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) agents stormed a notorious drug lord’s hotel room late on Friday, July 21, as he was getting a hired courier ready to swallow 93 pellets of cocaine intended for distribution in Italy. This drug lord is known for funding young Nigerians to traffick Class A drugs to Europe, particularly Italy.
Charles Uwagbale, a 48-year-old drug lord, recruited Uju Dominic, 35, from his base in Italy with the promise that he would travel to Nigeria on July 21, consume 100 cocaine pellets, and then depart for Italy on July 22.
As planned, the mule was placed in the Golden Heaven Hotel in Okota, Isolo, Lagos, near Enoma Street and Ago-Palace Way, where Uwagbale delivered 93 wraps of the Class A narcotic for him to consume at around 23:45 on Friday night.
Femi Babafemi, the director of media and advocacy for the NDLEA, revealed in a statement on Sunday that the drug lord and his mule were about to complete their transaction when undercover agents who had been pursuing them as a result of reliable intelligence stormed their hotel room, apprehended both, and recovered the drug exhibits, which weighed a total of 1.427 kilograms.
On Thursday, July 20, agents of the Lagos state command of the agency, who conducted the arrest and made the seizure, carried out a raid on Akala in the state’s Mushin region. There, they found 37.5kg of cannabis hidden within the residence of a fleeing suspect.
Meanwhile, attempts to enter Nigeria through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja, with 98 cartons containing five million one hundred and twenty two thousand nine hundred (5, 122, 900) Tramadol 225mg pills with an estimated street value of about three billion seven hundred million naira (N3.7billion), only, have been thwarted by men of the Nigeria Customs Service and NDLEA officers at the airport as well as those at the border
According to preliminary findings, the consignments were imported from Pakistan and India, and part of the seized consignments were bound for Freetown, Sierra Leone.
In a similar vein, NDLEA agents in Bauchi state have apprehended three suspects, Emmanuel Onyebuchi, 32, Uche Iyida, 33, and Chinedu Ezeanyim, 32, along with a truck driver and his assistant at the Shopping Complex, Maiduguri Bye-Pass, Bauchi town on Wednesday, July 19, and have since conducted a follow-up search of Iyida’s home on Friday, July 21.
In a related development, agents seized 46,000 tramadol capsules from a suspect, Paul Ajaegbu, 36, along the Owerri-Aba road in Imo state on Monday, July 17, and no less than Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Five Hundred (999,500) Exol-5 tablets from a shop near the market at Hong Road, Gombi, Adamawa state on Friday, July 21. The same person had previously been detained for the same offense, namely on February 9, 2023.
On July 20, NDLEA agents from Ondo state invaded the Ofosu woodland and demolished 29 hectares of marijuana farms there.
The Osamezu quartet The farm’s owner, George Chukwuemeka, 51, his wife Kate Osamezu, 43, Agboola Wasiu, 37, and Mustapha Sanni were all detained during the raid, and 118.5 kg of processed cannabis was found on the property.
On Monday, July 17, at least 107 giant bags of the same illegal material weighing 1,132.5kg were found in a raid on a suspect’s warehouse in Elegbeka, Ose LGA.
On Friday, July 21, agents from Sokoto state detained a suspect, Charles Nwankwo, 50, who was in possession of 610 kg of cannabis in the Tamaje neighborhood of Sokoto. On the same day, agents from Yobe state detained a suspect, Shaibu Musa, 29, who was fleeing after 36 kg of skunk were found in his home on Wednesday, July 19.
Activists in Edo state, meanwhile, conducted a search on the Utese Forest Ovia North East LGA on Monday, July 17, when they detained Victor Asukwo Jack and seized 59 bags of processed cannabis sativa totaling 640kg.
His two marijuana plantations, which had a combined area of 1.489895 and 2.445295 hectares, were demolished. Additionally, 50-year-old Endurance Chukwuma was detained along with seven bags of processed cannabis sativa totaling 68kg, and his 0.254324-hectare cannabis farm was destroyed.
A Toyota Sienna with the license plate RBC 451 CM carrying a total of 273kg of cannabis was earlier stopped on July 19 in Ogida, Benin City, and the suspect, Lucky Oriakhi, 41, was taken into custody. Meanwhile, agents found 48,380 pills of tramadol in a commercial bus with the license plate KAK 66 XA traveling to Kabba, Kogi state, and took the driver, Ibrahim John, into custody.
On Tuesday, July 18, two suspects, Abubakar Suleiman, 30, and Shehu Garba (also known as Shagari), 29, were detained in Nasarawa while driving a Peugeot J5 car that had 1,608.4 kg of cannabis sativa. The shipment was loaded in the state of Edo with distribution planned for the state of Bauchi.
While a total of 1,556.1kg of cannabis was found on two suspects, Jonathan Nuhu, 54, and Mohammed Abubakar, 18, after their arrests in the Wudil neighborhood of Kano State on July 20th, 76kg of the same drug was found on Yakubu Muhammad, 32, on July 17th while traveling from Port Harcourt to Kano in a trailer.
On Wednesday, July 19, agents in Ogun state recovered 810 packets totaling 604kg of cannabis from the home of one Adetunji Abiodun.
On Friday, July 21, NDLEA officers once more foiled an attempt to smuggle Colorado, a synthetic cannabis variant, into Nigeria through the Tincan port in Apapa, Lagos. During a joint inspection of the shipment, the officers found a total of 323 parcels of the illegal substance hiding in one of the four used cars in a container marked MEDU 7519460 coming from Montreal, Canada, weighing 161.5kg.
At least three suspects are currently being held by the NDLEA in connection with the cargo, and operatives were also offered a bribe of N20 million ($22,900), which the importer’s agents later collected and documented as proof.
Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd), Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, was impressed by the number of arrests and seizures made by officers and men of MMIA, Lagos, Bauchi, Adamawa, Ondo, Sokoto, Yobe, Edo, Imo, Kano, Kogi, Ogun, Nasarawa, and Tincan Commands in the previous week.
Marwa advised the agents and their counterparts around the nation to keep working in concert with other security organizations and interested parties to combat drug misuse and trafficking in illegal substances.
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