August 17, (THEWILL) — Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have arrested a notorious drug kingpin, Sunday Ibigide, in Asaba, Delta State, three years after he went into hiding.
Ibigide, 36, was apprehended on Sunday alongside his aide, Clement Osuya, 27, while attempting to transport 250 blocks of skunk weighing 138 kilograms in a distribution bus.
NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, in a statement on Sunday, said the suspect had been on the agency’s wanted list since March 2022 after the seizure of 24.137kg of skunk and 10 grams of molly linked to him.
In a series of coordinated operations across the country, NDLEA operatives also raided three cannabis farms in Enugu Ezike, Enugu State, where 37,500kg of skunk cultivated on 15 hectares was destroyed. Six suspects were arrested, while 74.5kg was recovered for prosecution.
In Enugu metropolis, 20,700 pills of tramadol and cocodamol were seized from 53-year-old Emmanuel Ayogu along Nsukka Road, while two others were caught with 27.6kg of skunk at New Market.
Similarly, in Lagos, operatives arrested a 52-year-old woman, Muyibat Mumuni, and her son, Faruk, 25, at Mushin with 298 blocks of Ghana Loud weighing 149kg. Another suspect, Emmanuel Samuel, was arrested in Ajah, Lekki, with 8.5kg of Canadian Loud.
In Gombe State, 128,000 capsules of tramadol were recovered from one Sani Mohammed, 32, while 337,800 capsules were intercepted along the Okene-Lokoja highway, Kogi State, from a commercial driver transporting the opioids to Niger State.
Also, in Taraba State, 11,250kg of skunk was destroyed on 4.5 hectares of farmland in Tanmiya Forest, Sardauna LGA, while 29,840 capsules of tramadol were seized from a suspect in Wukari. Similar arrests and seizures were recorded in Kaduna, Kano, and Edo States.
In a major breakthrough, NDLEA operatives, in collaboration with the Nigeria Customs Service and other security agencies, intercepted five containers at the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, Onne, Rivers State, yielding 875,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup valued at N6.1bn and 3.5 million pills of benzhexol worth N1.7bn.
NDLEA Chairman/Chief Executive, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), commended the operatives for their efforts and urged them to sustain the agency’s balanced approach to the war against drug abuse.
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