OPERATIVES of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on January 1, intercepted a consignment of Colorado, a very strong strain of cannabis, concealed in boxing kits imported from the United States of America (USA).
NDLEA spokesman, Mr Femi Babafemi, said in a statement on Sunday that a weeklong intelligence-led operation to get the receiver arrested was consummated on Saturday, following the successful tracking and arrest of 38-year-old Saheed (surname withheld), who distributes the psychoactive substance to dealers across Lagos State.
The consignment had arrived in the country on January 1 via Cairo on Egypt Airlines flight marked as boxing kits.
According to Saheed, he delivers such consignments to different recipients whenever his childhood friend, who is based in the US, sends them.
The latest shipment has a total weight of 1.80 kilogrammes.
Meanwhile, a 28-year-old female supplier of ammunition to bandits, Bilkisu (surname withheld) came top on the list of 12 other suspects arrested by NDLEA operatives in New Year interdiction operations in Kaduna, Lagos, Niger, Kogi, Kano, Borno and Osun states.
Bilkisu was arrested on January 3 by NDLEA officers on patrol on the Zaria-Kano expressway in possession of 249 rounds of 7.62 mm live ammunition concealed in a black nylon bag kept in her lady’s handbag.
She was on her way to deliver the ammunition to an identified bandit in Kakumi village, Katsina State when she was nabbed, after which she was transferred to the Kaduna State command of the Nigeria Police Force for further investigation.
The military authorities at the Bonny Camp cantonment in Lagos, on January 2, transferred a suspect, Francis (surname withheld) and 63 jumbo bags of Ghana Loud, a strain of cannabis weighing 2,104.2 kilogrammes and a truck to the Lagos State command of NDLEA.
The suspect and the drug exhibits, according to Babafemi, were earlier intercepted by NDLEA officers on December 12, close to the gate of the military cantonment in Bonny Camp, Victoria Island.
Some armed escorts, however, resorted to sporadic shooting to obstruct the operation, a development which attracted soldiers from the cantonment, who eventually intervened and took custody of the consignment and suspect before transferring them to the agency.
In the same vein, NDLEA operatives in Niger State, on Thursday, during a stop-and-search operation on Suleja-Kaduna road, intercepted a J5 bus coming from Ondo State to Zaria, Kaduna State, with 23 bags of cannabis sativa weighing 219.5 kilogrammes.
Babafemi said two suspects were arrested in connection with the seizure.
While a female drug trafficker, Queen (surname withheld), was arrested on Saturday in a commercial bus enroute Abuja, on the Okene-Lokoja expressway with 12 compressed blocks of cannabis weighing 4.6 kilogrammes and 0.046 kilogrammes designer drugs concealed in an indomie carton, another suspect, Mubarak (surname withheld), was nabbed at Gadar Tamburawa area of Kano on January 1 with 445.9 kilogrammes of the same psychoactive substance.
In Borno, four suspects were arrested at Pomfomari bye pass area of the state with 60 kilogrammes of cannabis.
Also, in Osun, NDLEA operatives on patrol on the Osogbo-Ode Omu road on New Year day, intercepted a consignment of illicit drugs sent through waybill from Lagos to Osogbo.
A follow-up operation led to the arrest of a suspect.
The drugs recovered included cannabis sativa 10.8 kilogrammes; Loud 150 grammes; Colorado 19 grammes; Molly 5 grammes totalling 10.974 kilogrammes. A digital scale, N18,000 monetary exhibit and customised wrapping papers for Colorado were also seized.
NDLEA commands across the 36 states and the FCT equally continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitisation lectures in schools, communities, work places and others.
Commending the arrests and seizures of the past week by officers and men of the MMIA, Lagos, Niger, Kogi, Kano, Borno, and Osun commands, the chairman and chief executive officer of the NDLEA, Brigadier-General Mohamed Marwa (retd) charged them and their compatriots across all formations of the agency to continue to remain vigilant and double their drug demand reduction, as well as drug supply reduction efforts in the new year.
