By Yomi Kareem
National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, said it has arrested another wanted drug kingpin, Henry Chukwuneku Okamaru (a.k.a Lawrence IK Okamaru) behind the 2000.6kg Cannabis Sativa seized in a concrete mixer truck in Adamawa State on 2nd December 2021, and that he was arrested in Ondo state after five months of manhunt by its operatives.
The Agency maintained that two suspects: Matthew Donuwe and Friday Nmborgwu were arrested in connection to the consignment last December and that they had confessed that the concrete mixer truck with Lagos registration number SMK 890 XB was loaded with the illicit drug in Ogbese, Ondo state while they travelled for two months on the road before arriving Adamawa where they were eventually arrested by NDLEA operatives.
In a statement yesterday by NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Mr Femi Babafemi, he posited that investigations revealed that Okamaru is one of the leaders of a cannabis cultivation cartel that operates in the Ondo-Ekiti axis, while he shuttles between Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Edo and Delta States from where he coordinates supplies of illicit consignments to Northern parts of the country and Lagos State.
Adding that the drug lord has also been identified as a member of an international drug trafficking ring, who shuttles between Nigeria and South Africa where he settles his family. He has a strong control and stake in cannabis cultivation in Ondo, Edo, Ekiti, Osun and Oyo States with large storage facilities in Lagos and Abbi in Delta State from where his consignments are distributed year round.
In the same vein, the Agency stated that, a 36-year-old Nigerian based in Italy, Nwakanma Michael Uche has been arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, NAIA Abuja for ingesting pellets of heroin.
Nwakanma who hails from, Arodinzuogu Village, Ideato Local Government Area of Imo State was nabbed while trying to board Air France Airline enroute Abuja-Paris-Milan, Italy on Sunday 15th May 2022. He was thereafter kept under observation during which he excreted 95 pellets of the illicit drug.
The suspect according to NDLEA claimed he came to see his parents in Nigeria after 12 years in Italy and to complete his final traditional marriage rites. He added that he was to be paid N1.5million after a successful delivery of the drugs in Milan.
