BY NKECHI NAECHE– ESEZOBOR— In a bid to end drug abuse in the Country, Operatives of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, on Sunday said 162,351 bottles of codeine based syrup were intercepted from two containers at the Apapa seaport in Lagos.
According to the agency during a joint examination of two containers with men of the Customs Service and other security agencies not less than 7,200,000 pills of Royal 225mg Tapentadol and Carisoprodol worth N3,600,000,000 in street value were seized from a watch-listed container from India at Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, Rivers state.
It added that 780 cartons of chlorphenamine containing 15,600,000 pills of the opioid, were also recovered. From two other watch-listed containers equally searched at the port in Onne, a total of 337,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup worth N2,359,000,000 were recovered from them.
This the agency said brought the total value of the seized Tapentadol, Carisoprodol and Codeine consignments at the two seaports to N7,095,457,000.
In Bauchi state, a suspect Sunday Jonathan Ogenyi, 33, was arrested along Bauchi-Jos road with 76,600 pills of tramadol concealed in false compartments of his Toyota Sienna vehicle marked Enugu JRV 341 ZY, while NDLEA operatives in Ondo state on Tuesday 15th October arrested three suspects: Goddey Obizuo; Samuel Aniete; and Kuffrey Aniete at Afo village where 672kg cannabis sativa was seized from them.
A raid at Illushi forest in Esan South East LGA, Edo state led to the destruction of 10,590.36kg cannabis spread on 4.236144 hectares of farmland. Suspects arrested during the operation include: Benson Upuoni, 65; and Sunday Nwaeboyi, 35.
In Lagos, NDLEA operatives on Tuesday 15th October arrested Andrew Joseph Anoriode with 3kg methamphetamine and 1.90kg cannabis along Lagos – Ibadan expressway while 241kg of same substance was recovered at Gbaji, Badagry area of the state. A suspected meth cook, Agbeiboh Oscar, was nabbed same Tuesday at Abule Osun with 265grams of methamphetamine and different quantities of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of methamphetamine and others.