By Adenike Lawal
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has uncovered a syndicate using Hajj pilgrimages to traffic cocaine to Saudi Arabia, arresting key suspects and seizing drugs and counterfeit currency across the country in a sweeping operation.
Spokesman Femi Babafemi confirmed on Sunday that Abubakar Muhammad, Abdulhakeem Muhammed Tijjani and Muhammad Aji Shugaba were arrested in Kano following the earlier arrest of two Hajj-bound pilgrims who had ingested 90 wraps of cocaine.
The pilgrims, Ibrahim Umar Mustapha and Muhammad Siraj Shifado, were intercepted at Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport on May 26 while boarding Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 940 to Jeddah.
Scans revealed the drugs in their system and they later excreted a total of 1.04 kilograms of cocaine under medical supervision.
Investigations led to the arrest of the cartel’s ringleaders in Kano. In another incident on May 28, NDLEA operatives arrested 60-year-old businessman Chinedu Leonard Okigbo at the same airport.
He was caught attempting to smuggle 1.41 kilograms of cocaine hidden in 65 wraps while heading to Iran via Qatar Airways flight QR1432.
In a joint operation with Customs and other agencies at the Port Harcourt Ports Complex in Onne, officers seized seven containers loaded with banned pharmaceuticals.
The haul included hundreds of thousands of bottles of codeine syrup and over five million tablets of tapentadol with a combined street value of ₦9.35 billion.
Along the Kano-Maiduguri road on May 30, NDLEA arrested two suspects, Abubakar Hussein and Sahabi Adamu, with counterfeit US dollars totaling $900,000.
The case has been handed over to relevant authorities for investigation.
On May 27 in Adamawa, officers recovered 390 blocks of cannabis weighing over 275 kilograms from an abandoned vehicle along the Ngurore-Yola road.
In Ilorin, Kwara State, a well-known female trafficker, Alhaja Mutiat Abdul-Fatai, was arrested on May 31 at Oja Oba with quantities of tramadol, flunitrazepam and codeine syrup.
The agency also intensified its drug education campaign under the War Against Drug Abuse initiative by holding sensitization sessions in secondary schools across Katsina, Enugu, Anambra, Kano and Cross River states.
NDLEA Chairman Brigadier General Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), praised the coordination of officers nationwide and reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to combining enforcement with education to fight drug abuse and trafficking across Nigeria.
