NDLEA Arrests Malaysian Returnee With Illicit Drug In Music Speakers
By Bukar BOLORI
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a 41-year-old ex-convict and Malaysian returnee, Ndubuisi Udatu (aka Richard) with two giant music speakers used to conceal four large parcels of methamphetamine weighing 2.7 kilogrammes meant for distribution in two Adamawa’s town of Yola and Mubi, and across the border in Cameroon.
According to a statement on Sunday by the spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, Udatu was arrested inside a commercial transport bus at an NDLEA checkpoint at Namtari along Ngurore -Yola road, Adamawa last Monday.
He was found with two new music speakers used to conceal four packages of methamphetamine and monetary exhibit of N22,300.
Udatu, in his statement, claimed he returned to Nigeria to continue his illicit drug trade after serving out his jail term in Malaysia where he had been arrested, convicted and sent to prison for drug trafficking offences.
In another interdiction exercise, NDLEA officers in a joint border operation with Customs personnel at the Nigeria/Cameroon border, Mfum, Cross River state arrested a trans-border drug trafficker, 35-year-old Odoh Ikechukwu, with 8,740 ampoules of assorted opioids, weighing 395 kilogrammes.
They include: 1,080 ampoules of fentanyl injection, 2,160 ampoules of morphine sulphate injection, 3,010 ampoules of phenobarbital sulphate injection, 2,160 ampoules of pethidine injection, and 330 ampoules of midazolam injection.
In Kano, NDLEA operatives last Friday arrested 27-year-old Aliyu Ibrahim with 20 ATM cards and 25,600 pills of tramadol 225mg and 250mg at Bachirawa area of Kano, while 48-year-old Gambo Lawan was nabbed in a follow up operation at Wazobia motor park, Gwagwalada FCT Abuja following the seizure of a consignment of 8,960 pills of tramadol by NDLEA officers on routine check along Gwagwalada expressway last Monday.
Not less than 124 kilogrammes of skunk, a strain of cannabis, packaged in 11 jumbo bags were last Friday recovered from the boot of a Lexus car marked KTU 54 CU driven by a suspect, Ademiluyi Adedapo, 58, along Mokwa-Jebba road, Niger state.
He said the NDLEA commands across the country continued to balance their drug supply reduction operations with War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) social advocacy campaigns to schools, markets, worship centres and communities in the past week.
Meanwhile, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (Rtd) while commending the efforts of the officers and men of Adamawa, Cross River, FCT, Kano and Niger State commands of the agency for job well done, tasked them and their compatriots nationwide not to rest on their oars but continue to raise the bar in their offensive action against drug cartels with an equal measure of drug demand reduction efforts.
