GENERAL Overseer of Christ Living Hope Church Ugochukwu Emmanuel Ekwem has been arrested by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Ikeja, Lagos.
He was arrested on his way to a three-week crusade in Nairobi, Kenya, with 54 sticks of drugs wrapped around his body.
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In a statement by the spokesman of NDLEA Femi Babafemi titled, ‘Church General Overseer arrested with drugs at Lagos airport,’ the NDLEA said when the drugs were tested, the 54 sticks proved positive to cannabis.
“Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, have arrested the General Overseer of Christ Living Hope Church, Rev. Ugochukwu Emmanuel Ekwem at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja Lagos while on his way to a three-week crusade in Nairobi, Kenya, with 54 sticks of drugs wrapped around his body,” the statement stated.
According to the statement, the clergyman confessed during a preliminary interview that he packed that quantity of illicit substance on his body to use during his three-week crusade in Kenya.
“On the same day, another passenger, Nnakeanyi Chukwuka King, who arrived at the airport on Ethiopian Airlines flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Addis Ababa, was intercepted during the inward clearance of passengers at the E-Arrival Hall of the MMIA.
“During a search of his luggage, forty (40) parcels of Cocaine concealed inside bottles of body cream with a gross weight of 9.70kg were recovered from the suspect,” the statement further said.
The agency said it also arrested Edo Blessing, on Wednesday, March 9, on an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Italy with 2, 090 tablets of Tramadol 225mg and Flunitrazepam, and also one Rafiu Abbas at the NAHCO Export Shed of the airport when he presented a cargo containing 19.15kg cannabis going to London.
The youthful and popular preacher, according to the NDLEA, has his church headquarters at Isuaniocha, Mgbakwu Road, Awka, Awka North LGA, Anambra State, and two other branches in Lagos and Abuja.
Chairman of NDLEA Mohamed Buba Marwa commended officers and men of the MMIA, Apapa Port, Kaduna, Yobe and Anambra commands of the agency for the impressive seizures and arrests in the past one week.
A reporter with the ICIR
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