Eleven persons, including seven men and four women, were on
Friday arrested by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in
Port Harcourt for being in possession of and peddling various hard drugs
with total weight of 347.732 kilograms.
Commander of the rivers state command of the NDLEA, Jude Ekure, who
told journalists at a briefing in his office in Port Harcourt, said
substances comprising cocaine, heroin and cannabis were retrieved from a
joint operation with operatives from the 2 Amphibious, Port Harcourt
barracks, on the slum at Abonnema wharf.
According to him, the operation which started at about 3am, caught
the peddlers in the slum unawares, a factor which he said made it a
success.
The NDLEA boss who said the state needed a lot of work to do in the
area of drug abuse and illicit trafficking, going by the volume of hard
drugs that were impounded from just a single operation in one area,
noting that there is need to pay real attention and not lip service to
ending the drug menace in the state.
He said “the operation was carried at about 3am this morning between
officials of the NDLEA and operatives of the 2nd brigade of the Nigerian
Army at Abonnema wharf. At the end of the day we made 11 arrests, seven
males and four females.
“A total of 347.732 kilogrammes of hard drugs, comprising cannabis,
heroine and cocaine were recovered from that scene of operation. If from
one operation in one small area, we were able to recover this volume of
hard drugs, it goes to say that the state has a lot to do in tackling
the problem drug abuse and illicit trafficking,” said the anti-drug
chief.
He further stated that the agency had not carried out any operation
in the area all along because it was taking its time to do a thorough
job “by the arrests and seizure this morning you will agree with me that
we have some impact”.
The suspects were later paraded with the seized illegal items. Some
of the suspects paraded are Elizabeth West, a first year student
of Banking and Finance department of Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri-Borno
state, Nene Johnson, Festus Okumgba, Jude Okpara and Grace Etel among
others
Ekure said the suspects were going to be prosecuted accordingly.
Source: Channels TV
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