By Yochuku Ofoka Yobolisa, Editor in Chief
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, yesterday, arrested and charged one Goodluck Igbineweka Odeh, a suspected drug pusher after finding some 2 kilogramme heroin in his traveling bag at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja.
In a statement signed by the agency’s director of media and advocacy, Femi Babafemi, Odeh feigns ignorance of the presence of the hard drug which the anti-drug officials found at the bottom of his leather suitcase, saying that he bought the bag as a fairly-used item at an unknown market in Lagos.
On close interrogation, the 40-year-old man who was arrested at the NAIA departure hall while trying to board an Ethiopian airline bound for Rome via Addis Ababa, said, “I don’t know how the drug found its way into my bag. I bought the bag at an open market, and I don’t know the name or address of the market.”
Odeh who hails from Ikpoba Okha LGA of Edo State told NDLEA officials that he came home to Nigeria to buy foodstuffs and bushmeat to take back to Italy. He said he worked as a charge hand on farms in Italy earning 50 Euros per day or as a flyers distributor earning the same amount of daily wages.
The airport commander, Kabir Sani Tsakuwa, said that charges have already been filed against the drug trafficker while further investigation is on to explore other leads to the case.
NDLEA Chairman/CEO, Brigadier-General Buba Marwa commended the airport commander and his officials and said that there is no hiding place for drug trackers in the country.
He added, “Wherever the criminal elements go to export or import illicit drugs through our borders, they will surely have the new NDLEA to contend with.”
