THE National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) says it has arrested two criminal suspects with 18 pieces of pump action rifles and 1,300 cartriges along the Okene/Abuja highway.
According to a statement released by the NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, the suspects were intercepted on Saturday, September 17 while coming from Onitsha, enroute Kaduna-Zaria.
Babafemi named the suspects as Chukwudi Aronu and Shuaibu Gambo.
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He said another suspect, Anthony Agada, 37, conveying 1,000 cartridges, was equally nabbed the same day in a bus coming from Onitsha and heading to Abuja.
According to him, 1,404 bottles of codeine syrup and 2,040 ampoules of pentazocine injection were seized from another vehicle coming from Onitsha, enroute Sokoto.
He stressed that the receiver, Stanley Raymond, 39, and the sender, Shadrack Ifediora, 46, were arrested in Sokoto and Anambra states respectively, in follow-up operations.
In the same vein, the NDLEA said that on Thursday, September 15, its operatives arrested a drug dealer, Mohammed Mustapha Dalhatu, in Kaduna with eight bags of cannabis sativa weighing 67kg.
The statement read, “Another suspect, Maikudi Hassan, was arrested at Gubuci village of Ikara LGA with five bags of cannabis weighing 54.2kg. On Thursday 15th Sept, operatives also arrested Mary Ugwu and Hawwa Idi, at Anchau town, Kubau LGA with 721 ampoules of pentazocine injection, 37,000 tablets of exol-5, and nine ampoules of diazepam injection, as well as 6.8kg of rubber solution.
“In Edo, operatives recovered 285kg cannabis in two raids at Okpuje, Owan West LGA on Friday, 16th Sept, while in Lagos, 972.5kg of the same substance was recovered from an electronic shop at Alaba Int’l market and one of the suspects, Mrs. Ebere Aja, 38, arrested. No less than 335.1kg of cannabis was also seized in a raid at Kwanar Kundum area of Bauchi town, with two suspects, Usman Garba and Najib Ibrahim, arrested.”
The chairman/chief executive of the NDLEA, Mohammed Buba Marwa, commended the officers and men of the agency for jobs well done.
Marwa charged them to remain focused as they continue to discharge their responsibilities.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: umustapha@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M