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The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency arrested a former two-term Lagos councillor, intercepted 500 improvised explosive device components hidden in a commercial bus on a Niger State highway, and recovered more than 122,000 tramadol pills from a truck’s false bottom in Adamawa — the headline finds from a nationwide enforcement sweep between March 2 and March 7, 2026.
Sheleru Sadiq Olalekan, 45, who represented Orimedu community at Ibeju-Lekki Local Government Council for two terms and currently serves as a legislative aide, was arrested on March 2 at his residence in Ilado, Ibeju-Lekki, following credible intelligence linking him to drug sale and distribution in the area.
A room-by-room search of the property yielded 40 kilograms of skunk — a potent strain of cannabis — which Olalekan admitted ownership of during interrogation, also confirming ownership of the property itself. The arrest of a serving legislative aide and former elected official in Lagos’s fast-growing Ibeju-Lekki axis — an area already under intense law enforcement scrutiny as a corridor for drug movement — illustrated the agency’s stated policy of targeting politically connected suspects as part of its deterrence strategy under Chairman Mohamed Buba Marwa.
The IED component discovery on March 4 along the Mokwa-Jebba road in Niger State was the week’s most operationally alarming find. Patrol teams intercepted a commercial bus travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State, carrying 500 pieces of improvised explosive device components concealed inside a white sack — a quantity consistent with mass casualty intent rather than isolated criminal use.
A follow-up operation in Pelegi, Mashegu Local Government Area led to the arrest of the intended recipient, Osama Abdullahi, 21. NDLEA did not specify in its statement whether security agencies had been contacted over the IED components or whether an investigation was underway into the origin of the consignment in Oyo State or its planned deployment.
The Adamawa seizure on the same day was the largest pharmaceutical haul of the week. NDLEA operatives in Yola recovered 122,000 pills of tramadol and 700 grams of methamphetamine from a false-bottomed compartment in a truck marked ENU 645XX that was ostensibly transporting 2,000 cartons of locally produced drinks. The use of a legitimate cargo consignment as cover for a mixed opioid and methamphetamine shipment pointed to an organised trafficking operation rather than opportunistic small-scale distribution.
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The remaining operations yielded significant seizures across six additional states. In the Federal Capital Territory, Emeka Hyginus Okwor, 32, was arrested travelling from Obollo-Afor in Enugu State to Zuba, Abuja, with 1,000 pills of tapentadol 250mg — a strong opioid painkiller subject to prescription controls — concealed inside packs of baby diapers. Okwor told investigators he was delivering the pills to Guduwa village in Gurara Local Government Area of Niger State, where he operates a provision store, indicating that the narcotics were being distributed through legitimate retail infrastructure in a rural community. Along the Kabba-Obajana highway in Kogi State on the same day, agents intercepted a 36-year-old Cameroonian national, Mey Ali Muhamat, travelling from Lagos to Cameroon via Lokoja, Kano, and Maiduguri with 1.550 kilograms of Colorado — a synthetic cannabis strain — concealed inside a standing fan carton. The cross-border dimension of the Kogi interception, involving a foreign national using a northern transit corridor toward an international border, reflected NDLEA’s increasing focus on export-bound trafficking alongside domestic distribution.
In Kano State, Muhammed Ali, 20, was arrested at Gadar Tamburawa on March 3 with 11,283 tramadol pills. In Ogun State, a raid in Ogere yielded 46 kilograms of skunk and the arrest of two suspects, Nazifi Mudansir and Kabiru Musa.
Read Also: NDLEA Uncovers Warehouse, Recovers Cannabis Sativa In Ogun
In Delta State, Joy Chukwuma, 25, and Eugene Felix, 22, were arrested in Ogwashi-Uku on March 7 with 18.63 kilograms of skunk, 10.8 litres of codeine-based syrup, and 4,268 pills of tramadol and swinol — a combination suggesting retail-level polydrug dealing rather than a single-commodity operation. In Edo State, NDLEA destroyed 1,910.25 kilograms of skunk across two active cannabis farms in Egbisi forest, Uhumwonde Local Government Area, arresting farmers Eke London, 48, and Austin Isusi, 49, at the site. A third suspect, Alaba Adeboye, 47, was separately arrested in Ikhin town, Owan East Local Government Area, with a further 176.50 kilograms of skunk.
NDLEA commands across the country continued the War Against Drug Abuse sensitisation campaign in parallel with the enforcement operations, delivering lectures at secondary schools in Oyo, Niger, Zamfara, Lagos, Sokoto, Ebonyi, and Anambra states. Marwa commended officers of the Lagos, FCT, Kano, Niger, Kogi, Edo, Ogun, Delta, and Adamawa commands and urged them to sustain what he described as the agency’s balanced approach to drug control — combining enforcement with prevention education as the two pillars of its national mandate.
