Abuja, Feb. 2, 2025 – The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) says it retrieved 81 pellets of cocaine weighing 1.943 kilograms from stomach of Chijioke Igbokwe a 59-year-old businessman at the Lagos airport on Jan. 26, 2025.
Femi Babafemi, the Spokesman for the NDLEA, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday.
The statement said the NDLEA operatives arrested the suspect at the arrival hall of the airport during the inward clearance of passengers on an Ethiopian Airlines flight.
It said a body scan of the suspect confirmed the presence of illicit drugs which led to his detention for excretion observation.
The statement said after seven days of ingesting the illicit substance in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the suspect underwent an exploratory laparotomy to extract 57 out of the 81 pellets of cocaine stuck in his stomach.
Chijioke Igbokwe, who claimed to be in the clothing business at Arena, Oshodi, Lagos, departed Lagos for Addis Ababa on January 22.
While in Addis Ababa, the suspect ingested 81 wraps of cocaine before boarding a flight to Beirut, Lebanon, to deliver the illicit consignment for a fee of $3,000 on January 23.
On arrival in Beirut, he was denied entry for having less than $2,000, the minimum amount required for entry. Consequently, he was deported to Addis Ababa, where he attempted to excrete the illicit drugs, but could not.
He then proceeded to Lagos on Saturday, January 25, with the consignment still in his bowel. However, he was arrested by NDLEA officers upon his arrival at the Lagos airport on January 26.
“After five days under excretion observation, he managed to expel only 24 pellets with initial medical intervention at the Agency’s medical facility and the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja.
“As time was running out and complications from other underlying medical conditions arose, the suspect was eventually admitted to the tertiary facility
‘In all, a total of 81 pellets of the Class A drug with a gross weight of 1.943 kilograms were recovered from his stomach,” the statement said.
The NDLEA operatives in Lagos on Wednesday, January 29, also intercepted a consignment of 2,000 kilograms of Ghanaian Loud, a strain of cannabis produced in Ghana, at Lekki beach, where two suspects, Sunday Awoyede and Christopher Cletus, attempted loading them into a truck.
The suspects, the skunk shipment and the van, were immediately taken into custody. Another suspect, Lawal Idris Olasunkanmi, was also arrested the same day with 55kg of skunk during a raid at his base in the Mushin area of Lagos. (GBN)
