Following the seizure of their methamphetamine shipment at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja Lagos, agents of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, have detained drug lords Eyah Celestine Nnamdi, alias Murphy, and Ugwuoke Peter Oluchukwu, who are based in Qatar.
On June 9, Ugwuoke was the first person detained as Qatar Airways passengers were being cleared to leave Terminal 2 of the Lagos airport. The suspect was traveling to Doha on an international Ivorian passport bearing the name Hien Narcisse, according to NDLEA agents. Further examination of his black carry-on luggage revealed two sachets of crystalline substance that tested positive for methamphetamine and weighed 1 kg hidden in a false bottom.
The suspect is a Nigerian who went to get an Ivorian passport for his trips, according to preliminary inquiry. He said that he visited Qatar in August 2022 and had just returned from the Arab country two months prior in order to finalize the plans for the transportation of the heroin shipment.
After conducting additional research, agents learned that his senior trading partner, Murphy, who was headquartered in Qatar, was hiding out in Eziani, his hometown in Nsukka LGA, Enugu State. Ugwuoke, a native of the State’s Igboeze North Local Government Area, claims to have earned a National Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Federal Polytechnic Oko.
Quick action by NDLEA agents on June 10 in the Eziani community of Enugu State’s Nsukka Local Government Area resulted in the arrest of Murphy, whose real name turned out to be Eyah Celestine Nnamdi, who had spent some time in Indonesia before moving to Doha, Qatar.
In a similar vein, anti-narcotic agents from the agency have detained a female pharmacist named Ikwebe Ori Hellen in Kaduna after she tried to buy and sell six cartons of pentazocine injection containing 2,000 ampules using false certificates. She acknowledged ordering the medicine, which she intended to distribute in Kaduna, Abuja, and Sokoto, using fictitious paperwork from a Kaduna hospital. A freight agent first stopped the shipment at the local MMIA wing in Ikeja as it was being delivered to Kaduna.
In a similar vein, two operations by NDLEA agents in Niger state netted a total of 1,072 kg of marijuana. Four suspects—Aminu Mohammed, 50; Nasiru Mohammed, 30; Rabiu Haruna, 29; and Hamza Abubakar, 18—were detained when 726kg of the illegal material was discovered at the Oyoyo fueling station on the Kaduna-Abuja express road on Thursday, June 15. The next day, on Friday the 16th, agents stopped a Mercedes 1422 truck with the license plate MKD 116ZM while it was traveling from Umunede in the Delta state to the Garki market in Abuja with litres of palm oil.
But the truck driver, Jekwe Udenze, 38, and his two helpers, Gabriel Nzekwube, 43, and Chima Uzoma, 42, made a stop at Uromi, Edo State, and loaded 19 jumbo bags of marijuana totaling 346kg for delivery to Ignatius Mokwe, 47, at Dumez Luxury Park on Kaduna Road. Ignatius Mokwe, the owner of the illegal consignment, as well as the driver and his two helpers have all been detained.
The last week saw the destruction of 30.9 hectares worth of cannabis farms in Delta, Edo, and Ondo. In Delta, NDLEA agents with the assistance of troops demolished 18 hectares of cannabis farms on Monday, June 12 in Umuchime village, Ogume, Ndokwa West LGA. Two men and two women, Kingsley Atuola, 40, Okikiolu Adekunle, 44, Osai Doris, 40, and Ublenu Joy, 28, were among the four suspects detained on the farms.
Malachy Amaechi, Nanmua Peter, Ojo Momoh, Afam Luke, and John Danladi were detained inside a hut that was part of a 2.5-hectare cannabis farm in Edo state on Wednesday, June 14. The farm was destroyed, and 102 kilograms of cannabis that had already been harvested were recovered. The three farms that were leveled together totaled 3.978217 hectares, and another farm with a size of 1.294870 hectares was also destroyed.
In a same manner, agents searched the home of a dealer named Godwin Ejiro, 45, in the Ikpoba Oka LGA’s Uyiwnendi community on Saturday, June 17, and seized quantities of illegal substances such cocaine, heroin, meth, swinol, and cannabis. On the same day that Gideon Akoh was apprehended at Ala forest, where nine hectares of farmland had been damaged and 12 kg of harvested drug confiscated, John Emmanuel, 30, was apprehended in Ondo state with 81 kg of cannabis.
While 93.7kg of the drug were removed from a store in Enugu city on June 17th, Kwada Vendi, a wanted notorious dealer, was detained on June 13th with 30.6kg of the drug in Mamari, Maiduguri, Borno state. On Saturday, June 17, NDLEA agents in Bauchi state found 87,000 pills of tramadol and exol-5 from a suspect named Tony Ogbonna, 40, in Yelwa, the town of Bauchi.
On Wednesday, June 14, a suspect leaving Geidam, Yobe State abandoned a shipment of 13,800 pills of tramadol. On the same day, in Benue State, a suspect named Chidera Gabriel was detained with 22,100 of the same pharmaceutical opioid at an NDLEA check point in Vandeikya.
Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd), Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, has praised the officers and personnel of the MMIA, Delta, Edo, Ondo, Kano, Niger, Borno, Benue, Bauchi, and Enugu Commands of the Agency for their professionalism and vigilance in carrying out their duties. He urged them, as well as their colleagues across the nation, to keep pushing forward.
