Deportee undergoes surgery in NDLEA custody after ‘ingesting 81 cocaine pellets’

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested Chijioke Igbokwe for alleged drug trafficking. 

In a statement on Sunday, Femi Babafemi, NDLEA spokesperson, said the agency recovered a total of 81 pellets of cocaine with a gross weight of 1.943 kilograms from the suspect’s stomach.

The spokesperson said Igbokwe was arrested at the arrival hall of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) during the inward clearance of passengers on the Ethiopian Airlines flight on January 26. The suspect’s was taken for a body scan, which revealed illicit drugs in his system.

Bababfemi said Igbokwe was then taken into NDLEA “for excretion observation”.

“After five days under excretion observation, he could only expel 24 pellets following initial medical intervention at the Agency’s medical facility and the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) Ikeja,” the statement reads.

“With the clock ticking for him and the complication of other underlining medical conditions, the suspect was eventually admitted at the tertiary facility where he had to undergo exploratory laparotomy to extract the remaining 57 wraps of cocaine stuck in his stomach after his wife and brother endorsed the necessary consent forms on Thursday 30^th January.”

NDLEA said the suspect claimed to be in the cloth business at Arena, Oshodi, Lagos, before departing for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on January 22.

The agency added that Igbokwe allegedly ingested the 81 wraps of cocaine the following day in Ethiopia and boarded a flight to Beirut, Lebanon, to deliver the illicit consignment for a fee of $3,000.

“Upon his arrival in Beirut, he said he was refused entry because he had less than $2,000, the amount required to grant him entry. He was then deported to Addis Ababa, where he attempted to excrete the illicit drugs but could not. He thereafter proceeded to Lagos on Saturday, 25^th January, with the consignment in his bowel.”

In another operation, NDLEA operatives intercepted a 2000-kilogram shipment of Ghanaian Loud, a potent strain of cannabis, at Lekki Beach 29 January 29.

The agency arrested two suspects — Sunday Awoyede and Christopher Cletus — were arrested while attempting to load the drugs onto a truck.

Babafemi added that Lawal Idris Olasunkanmi was also arrested during a raid at his base in the Mushin area of Lagos, and the suspect was allegedly busted with 55kg of skunk.