In the wake of 8,561 drug traffickers being apprehended between January and August 2023, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has successfully obtained the conviction of 2,224 individuals, consisting of 1,985 men and 239 women.
Official data exclusively received by our correspondent indicates that within the same period, the anti-narcotics agency also seized a total of 888,743 illicit drugs.
According to recent disclosures from the agency, 14.3 million Nigerians between the ages of 15 and 64—a growing proportion of whom are women—are currently abusing drugs.
This was said earlier this month at the War Against Drug Abuse launch in Abeokuta, which was organized in association with Lions Club International, by Ibiba Odili, the NDLEA’s Ogun State Commander.
Containers containing powdered custard were used to hide the illegal material, which was a part of a larger shipment that was headed for London, United Kingdom.
In a similar vein, on Wednesday, May 17, a truck from Onitsha, Anambra State, was intercepted, leading to the arrest of a trans-border trafficker named Faisal Mohammed, 27, in Mubi. Inside, three blue rubber jerry cans, hidden beneath the trailer’s body section, contained 2,376 sachets of tramadol, totaling 23,760 pills.
Two drug lords from Qatar, Eyah Nnamdi, also known as Murphy, and Oluchukwu Ugwuoke, were apprehended by NDLEA operatives in June when their methamphetamine shipment was intercepted at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Ikeja, Lagos.
In a similar vein, the agency detained Ikwebe Helen, a female pharmacist, in Kaduna State when she tried to buy and sell six cartons of 2,000 ampule pentazocine injection using falsified documentation.
A fictitious couple and other drug dealers were apprehended by NDLEA agents in various regions of the nation in August.
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