Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency intercepted drug consignments worth more than ₦5 billion at the Lagos and Onne ports in recent weeks, while separately arresting a 38-year-old businessman caught attempting to smuggle 4.80 kilograms of cocaine to Italy, the agency said Sunday. Nigeria
The suspect was arrested September 27 at the joint screening point of Terminal 2 at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos as he prepared to board a Royal Air Maroc flight to Milan, according to a statement signed by NDLEA Director of Media and Advocacy Femi Babafemi. Operatives recovered 16 parcels of cocaine concealed in the soles of eight pairs of trainers and canvas shoes, along with another 195 wraps hidden in the railings of four travelling bags. The agency said the suspect told investigators he had paid ₦16 million in cash for the cocaine concealed in the shoes, while the bag-concealed consignment was intended for delivery to a partner already in Italy; he said the funds came from compensation he received after losing the tips of two fingers in an injury at a plastics manufacturing company where he had previously worked in Italy.
The Eastern Update has gathered that the port seizures underpinning the broader ₦5 billion figure spanned multiple Nigerian terminals and originated from several countries. At Apapa Port in Lagos, NDLEA operatives working alongside the Nigeria Customs Service intercepted 161 parcels of a cannabis strain known as Thai Loud, weighing 124 kilograms and valued at ₦372 million, concealed inside two refrigerators and two cartons in a container shipped from Bangkok, Thailand.
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At Onne Port in Rivers State, officers conducted joint examinations of two containers already on the agency’s watchlist. One yielded 40 packs of a cannabis strain known as Loud, weighing 22 kilograms, recovered from a travelling bag and three vehicles; the second contained 109,600 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup weighing 16,440 kilograms in total. The agency said that container had traveled from India to Saudi Arabia, where its origin history was deliberately deleted before being shipped onward to Nigeria, a detail investigators flagged as evidence of an effort to obscure the consignment’s true point of origin. The combined street value of the Loud and codeine seizures at Onne was put at ₦833.2 million.
A fourth major seizure came at Tincan Island Port in Lagos, where officers on September 29 intercepted a container shipped from Montreal, Canada, containing 2,595 parcels of a strain described as Canadian Loud, weighing 1,297.5 kilograms and valued at more than ₦3.8 billion, the single largest consignment among those detailed in the agency’s statement. The drugs were concealed inside a Toyota Sienna and a Hyundai Elantra loaded into the container, alongside 24 blue drums and six jumbo bags used as additional concealment.
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Beyond the ports, NDLEA operatives carried out a wave of raids and arrests across several Nigerian states in the same period. In Osun State, officers destroyed 20,234 kilograms of skunk cannabis cultivated across roughly 8.1 hectares of farmland in Ife South Local Government Area. In Lagos, 209,000 tablets of tramadol were recovered from an unoccupied compound in Ago Palace, and a 23-year-old was separately arrested during a follow-up operation at Ladipo Spare Parts Market, linked to the recovery of 61 grams of a synthetic cannabis strain known as Colorado and 24 grams of methamphetamine concealed inside an energy drink bottle and shipped as a waybill package through a commercial bus.
In Kogi State, officers intercepted a Lagos-Abuja commuter bus along the Okene-Lokoja highway and recovered two sachets containing one kilogram of methamphetamine, leading to the arrest in Utako, Abuja, of the consignment’s alleged 29-year-old owner during a follow-up operation. In Plateau State, a 41-year-old was arrested in the West of Mines area of Jos North following the seizure of 33 bags of skunk weighing 385 kilograms, while in Edo State officers raided the residence of a 35-year-old in Ovia North-East Local Government Area and recovered 32.2 kilograms of cannabis sativa. A separate Edo arrest, of a 23-year-old at Auchi Bypass in Benin City, yielded a mixed haul of 59 grams of Loud, 12 grams of Colorado, 19 grams of tramadol, 16 grams of methamphetamine, four grams of a substance described as Swinol and four grams of MDMA, commonly known as Molly.
The agency also disclosed the arrest of a 47-year-old man identified as Idris, apprehended six years after he allegedly jumped bail in a drug trafficking case before the Federal High Court in Jos. NDLEA Chairman Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa commended the officers involved across the various operations and called for continued intelligence-driven enforcement, while urging the agency to maintain what he described as a balanced approach combining enforcement with prevention and public sensitization programs carried out in schools, religious centers, workplaces and communities nationwide.
