Ebenezer Adurokiya, Reporting
A newlywed businessman has been arrested at Enugu airport after swallowing 72 wraps of cocaine in a desperate bid to fund his wedding expenses, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has said.
Lovely Chukwulobelu, 25, was intercepted by anti-narcotics officers at the departure hall of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport on Thursday 25 September as he attempted to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Portugal via Addis Ababa.
The groom, who still had his wedding ring on his finger, was found to have ingested the Class A drug and was placed under excretion observation. He subsequently passed a total of 72 wraps of cocaine.
The suspect told investigators he ran a car decoration business at the Trade Fair Complex in Ojo, Lagos, before relocating to Portugal in May 2023.
He claimed he returned to Nigeria recently and married on 13 September 2026, but resorted to drug trafficking to offset the debts incurred by his wedding.
In a separate operation, NDLEA operatives at the import shed of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Ikeja uncovered one of the year’s largest opioid hauls during a joint examination of three monitored consignments on Tuesday 22 September.
Officers seized 2,550,000 pills of Tramaking 225mg, Tramaking 250mg and Royal Tapentadol 250mg, with a combined gross weight of 1,640.55 kilogrammes. The consignments, valued at more than ₦3 billion, had been imported from India and Bangladesh via Qatar Airways, RwandAir and Ethiopian Airlines.
In Bauchi State, two suspects — Umar Hamidu, 35, and Abdulkarim Salihu, 45 — were arrested along the Maiduguri bypass with 300 compressed blocks of skunk weighing 262.5kg, concealed in the false bottom of a truck marked MUB757 YH.
Separately, two cannabis farms with a combined estimated yield of 1,360.23kg were destroyed by NDLEA officers, supported by soldiers, at Eko Camp in Ilushi, Edo State, on Wednesday 23 September.
In Lagos, two women — Odumabo Kehinde, 36, and Obiekwe Chioma, 40 — were arrested on Saturday 26 September when officers raided Anifowoshe Street in Mushin and recovered 3.4kg of skunk.
In a further operation in the state the same day, officers intercepted 58-year-old Ugwu Johnson at Ebute-Ero motor park with a large consignment of illicit drugs, including 5.920kg of skunk, 2,400 ampoules of pentazocine injection, 8,400 tablets of nitrazepam and 40,000 pills of tramadol.
Two Togolese nationals, Yinusa Abdulsamad, 35, and Fatai Baba, 33, were arrested on Saturday 26 September on the Iganna-Ilero road in Oyo State with 305.6kg of skunk concealed in two pick-up vans. The vehicles were being used for a cross-border trafficking racket moving Ghanaian-sourced cannabis into Nigeria through the Oyo axis.
At the Seme border in Badagry, Lagos, five suspects were arrested with 420 cartons of nitrous oxide, popularly known as laughing gas, weighing 1,688.4kg, along with two vehicles used to convey the exhibit from the border into Lagos. Those arrested were Kingsley John, 40; John Chibuike Okeke, 44; Lamidi Ismaila, 40; Babatunde Samuel, 42; and Afeesu Idowu, 47.
Meanwhile, commands and formations of the agency continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitisation activities with the same vigour over the past week.
Officers delivered lectures to students and staff of Community High School in Saki, Oyo State; Auchi College in Auchi, Edo State; the Alkali Modibbo Islamic Centre in Dukku, Gombe State; and Junior Arabic Secondary School in Kahu, Kibiya Local Government Area of Kano State.
The Delta Ports Command also paid a WADA advocacy visit to His Royal Majesty, Ogiame Atuwatse III, the Olu of Warri, among other engagements.
Commending the officers and men of the MMIA, AIIA, Lagos, Oyo, Edo, Seme and Bauchi Commands for their successful operations, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the NDLEA, Brigadier General Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd), urged them and their colleagues across the country to sustain the agency’s balanced approach to drug control.
