Seven drug traffickers
Forty-nine-year-old
Fred Obi was about to board an Ethiopian Air flight from Abuja to Tel
Aviv, Israel with a strange cargo allegedly concealed in his stomach
when the law caught up with him. He had ingested 1.594kg of cocaine.
But he was not the only one boarding
that same flight with the intention of transporting narcotics they had
ingested on November 22, 2014 when they were arrested by men of the
National Drug Law Enforcement Agency at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International
Airport, Abuja.
Also arrested were Ekechi Ferdinand, 36;
Okonkwo Paul, 20; Azubuogu Obumneme, 30; Okechi Anthony, 34; Anozie
Henry, 34 and Okafor Francis, 51.
NDLEA spokesperson, Mr. Mitchell
Ofoyeju, confirmed that the raid which was headed by the agency’s
commander at the Abuja Airport, Mr. Hamisu Lawan, would turn out to be a
revealing one.
The suspects, who were said to have been arrested and isolated, were soon made to excrete the drug they had ingested.
“The last of the suspects eventually
finished excreting the drugs in his stomach this morning (Thursday,
November 26),” Ofoyeju said.
Ferdinand excreted 1.616kg of cocaine,
Paul – 1.103kg, Obumneme – 1.450kg, Anthony – 935 grammes while Henry
exctreted 874 grammes of cocaine. The oldest of the suspects, Francis,
on his part excreted 1.167kg.
All the suspects, except Obi, were said to have Hong Kong as the destination on their tickets.
NDLEA Chairman, Ahmadu Giade, said that
the arrest of the suspects was an added victory to the war against drug
trafficking in the country.
He said, “Coming at a time when
commanders of our agency are holding a summit to move the agency
forward, this is a welcome development.
“Having seven suspected drug traffickers on a single flight is a reflection of the desperation of drug cartels.
“But this will prove to them that the NDLEA has the capacity to stop drug trafficking no matter what method they employ.
“Fortunately for the suspects as well,
our arrest has saved their lives because for the suspects heading to
Hong Kong, it is clearly stated in their visas that drug trafficking in
Hong Kong attracts the death penalty. Nigeria has equally been saved
from an embarrassment their arrest would have caused if they were caught
over there.”
Meanwhile, the NDLEA has been urged to
concentrate on intelligence gathering to identify the sources of wealth
of drug barons and stop them from gaining control of real estates, banks
and other legitimate businesses in the country.
In a paper titled Establishing an Intelligence Database: Process and Importance for Sustainable Drug Control
delivered at the 2014 Command Officers’ Summit in Kaduna, the state
Governor, Mukhtar Yero, called on the agency to seek elaborate
collaboration with stakeholders in the war against narcotics.
According to a statement by Ofoyeju,
Kaduna State has presented a bill to the state House of Assembly to
prohibit the abuse of lawful substances like Zakami, an intoxicating local plant said to be used by youths in the state.
Giade said, “Drug barons are constantly
devising new ways of smuggling drugs to markets around the world. Most
significantly, modes of drug concealment have assumed a more
sophisticated pattern. We must continue to embrace change and maintain
our superiority ahead of drug syndicates.
“Let us identify better, faster and
innovative ways of getting a task done. Let us learn how to prevent and
manage crisis. Let us identify barriers to effective training, anti-drug
abuse counselling, information gathering, diligent prosecution and
proffer solutions on the way forward.”
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