Vietnam-bound businessman excretes 68 wraps of cocaine at Lagos airport
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency says it operatives have arrested one Ibeanusi Nosike, a businessman, for drug trafficking in Lagos State.
Nosike, who was on his way to Vietnam, was apprehended at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.
The anti-narcotic agency disclosed that Nosike excreted 68 wraps of cocaine.
The NDLEA had on August 12 arrested a Vietnam-bound businessman, Paul Mbadugha, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport after he tested positive for ingesting cocaine.
Mbadugha excreted a total of 88 wraps of cocaine, weighing 1.710 kilograms.
The agency made the disclosure in a statement released on Sunday, the NDLEA’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi.
According to him, Nosike was arrested while attempting to board the first flight out of Lagos to Abuja.
He said, “An Onitsha, Anambra state based-businessman, Ibeanusi Solomon Nosike, has excreted 68 wraps of cocaine after 12 days of excretion observation following his arrest at the local wing of the MMIA Ikeja Lagos by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA.
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“The 36-year-old Ibeanusi was arrested in the early hours of Thursday 8th August 2024 at the old domestic terminal of the Lagos airport while attempting to board the first flight out of Lagos to Abuja where he was scheduled to join a Qatar Airways flight to Vietnam at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, NAIA, Abuja at about 10 am the same day.”
Babafemi noted that Nosike had been under surveillance since his arrival from Anambra State on August 7.
He said, “The suspect who came under NDLEA surveillance following intelligence had arrived in Lagos from his base in Onitsha, Anambra state, the previous day, August 7 and lodged in a hotel where he swallowed the 68 wraps of cocaine before heading to the airport for a 6:30 am flight the following morning.
“He was thereafter intercepted by NDLEA operatives who moved him into excretion observation where he spent the next 12 days excreting the cocaine pellets weighing 1.282 kilograms.”
Babafemi also said another Onitsha-based businessman, Aligbo Jacob, was arrested by NDLEA operatives following the seizure of a consignment of 1.20kg cannabis concealed in a package going to Dubai, UAE.
“Operatives at the MMIA Strategic Command of the Agency had intercepted the shipment at the export shed of the Lagos airport while investigations revealed the cargo was sent through a courier company in Onitsha. After a series of follow-up operations, Aligbo was eventually arrested in Onitsha on Saturday, 17th August,” he added.
Babafemi added that an all-female drug trafficking gang traffics drugs outside the country.
He said the leader of the syndicate, 42-year-old Olaribigbe Feyisara, had been under NDLEA radar before being tracked and arrested.
Babafemi said four other members of the gang were arrested.
He said, “Operatives of a Special Operations Unit in NDLEA have arrested five cross-border female drug traffickers at the Seme border while on their way back to Lagos from Ghana. Leader of the syndicate, 42-year-old Olaribigbe Bashirat Feyisara, has been under NDLEA radar before being tracked and arrested on August 21 along with other members of her gang: Abogun Fatimah Ladidi; Osibeluwo Tolulope Oluwaseun; Akanni Balikis Oluwatoyin and Ajetumobi Amudalat.
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“At the point of their arrest at the Seme border, a total of 14 packs of Loud, a strong strain of cannabis, weighing a total of 6.97kg, were recovered from hidden parts of their bodies.”
At the Lagos port, Babafemi said NDLEA operatives intercepted N2.2billion worth of codeine.
He said, “Similarly, NDLEA operatives at the Tincan seaport in Lagos on Friday 23rd August intercepted two containers which came from Mundra port in India.
“No fewer than 1,596 cartons of codeine-based syrup containing 319,200 bottles of the opioid worth N2,234,400,000.00 in street value were recovered from the containers during a joint examination with other port stakeholders.”
In Edo State, Babafemi said two ladies were arrested for online sales of drug-laced cookies and cakes.
He said, “Two ladies were arrested by operatives in Edo state for online sales of illicit drugs. While Martha Owotorofa, 26, was nabbed at Kada Plaza, Benin City, with quantities of Canadian Loud, Odion Uzordinma, 21, was arrested at the Ugbowo area of the city with 30 cups of cookies and 17 slices of cake, all laced with illicit substances.
“A raid operation at Oghada village, Uhunmwonde local government area of the state on Tuesday 20th August led to the arrest of Saturday Edobor, 50, with 288.8kg cannabis.”
In Lagos, he said a suspect, Godwill Davidson, was arrested on August 21 with 3,834 bottles of codeine syrup, 5,200 pills of Co-Codamol, and 11 880 tablets of Rohypnol in the Mushin area of the state.
“Another suspect, Yahaya Ibrahim, 23, was nabbed by operatives along Okene-Lokoja-Abuja expressway, Kogi state, same day with 42,000 pills of tramadol coming from Asaba, Delta State en route Potiskum, Yobe state.
“Two suspects, Feranmi Bankole, 25, and Fredrick Tobiloba, 25, were on Tuesday 20th August arrested at Pariz Lounge, Adeoyo area in Ibadan metropolis, Oyo State, following intelligence. Recovered from them were 267.5 litres of skuchies, a mixture of black currant and assorted illicit drugs and 18 grams of Canadian Loud,” the statement added.
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26 dead, 59 missing as Israel hits Gaza, Lebanon in deadly strikes
Strikes by the Israel military killed dozens in Gaza on Sunday, the civil defence said, while also hitting a Hezbollah stronghold near Beirut’s international airport.
Israel has been fighting on two fronts since September, intensifying attacks on Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah after nearly a year of cross-border clashes alongside its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
A year after the Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attacks on its south, Israel vowed to stop the Islamist militants from regrouping in the north of the Palestinian territory, launching a major assault there.
In the latest violence in the besieged Palestinian territory, the civil defence agency said Israeli air raids killed at least 46 people.
The deadliest strike, in the middle of the night in Beit Lahia in the north, killed 26 people, including women and children, and left at least 59 others buried under the rubble, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
Another strike killed 10 people in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where a separate strike on a house claimed the life of a woman, he said.
An Israeli drone strike killed five people in the southern city of Rafah, Bassal said, adding another strike killed three women and a child in the Nuseirat camp.
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846.
The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry figures, which the United Nations considers reliable.
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Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
On Israel’s second front in the north, AFPTV footage showed several strikes hit Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold, shortly after the Israeli military warned people to evacuate.
Columns of smoke were seen rising over the capital’s southern suburbs, where Lebanon’s only international airport is located.
Further south, overnight Israeli air strikes and shelling hit the flashpoint town of Khiam, the Lebanese state-run National News Agency reported.
Following the bombardment, the Israeli army said about 20 projectiles were seen crossing from Lebanon into Israel, and that some of them were intercepted. Emergency services did not immediately report any casualties.
Israel has escalated its bombing of Lebanon since September 23 and has since sent in ground troops, following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah militants in support of Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.
Its military on Saturday said Hezbollah had already “paid a big price”, but vowed to keep fighting until tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the north can return home.
Israeli forces also shelled the southern area of Lebanon along the Litani River, the NNA said on Sunday.
The news agency had earlier reported strikes on the southern city of Tyre, including in a neighbourhood near UNESCO-listed ancient ruins. Israel’s military said late Saturday it had hit Hezbollah sites in the area.
In Lebanon’s east, the health ministry said an Israeli strike in the Bekaa Valley killed six people including three children.
Hezbollah said it fired a guided missile that set an Israeli tank ablaze in the southwestern Lebanese village of Chamaa.
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In eastern Lebanon, funerals were held for 14 civil defence staff killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday.
“They weren’t involved with any (armed) party… they were just waiting to answer calls for help,” said Ali al-Zein, a relative of one of the dead.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,452 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September.
Israel announced the death of a soldier in southern Lebanon, bringing to 48 the number killed fighting Hezbollah.
A UN-backed assessment on November 9 warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza, amid the increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid.
Israel has pushed back against a Human Rights Watch report this week alleging that its mass displacement of Gazans amounts to a “crime against humanity”, as well as findings from a UN Special Committee pointing to warfare practices “consistent with the characteristics of genocide”.
A foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the HRW report as “completely false”, while the United States — Israel’s main military supplier — said accusations of genocide “are certainly unfounded”.
In Israel, police said they arrested three suspects after flares shot near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the central city of Caesarea, south of Haifa, while he was away.
Demonstrators in Tel Aviv on Saturday reiterated demands that the government reach a deal to free dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.
The protest came a week after mediator Qatar suspended its role until Hamas and Israel show “seriousness” in truce and hostage-release talks.
Court stops NBC from imposing fines on broadcast stations
The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has ordered the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to “stop using the NBC Act and the Nigeria Broadcasting Code to impose fines, threaten to impose sanctions, harass and intimidate the broadcast stations and other independent media houses in the country.”
The court declared that “the NBC and its agents lack the legal power and authority to impose penalty unlawfully and unilaterally, including fines, suspension, withdrawal of license or any form of punishment whatsoever on independent media houses for promoting access to diverse information on issues of public importance.”
The suit followed the decision by the NBC in 2022 to impose a fine of N5 million each on Trust TV, Multichoice Nigeria Limited, NTA-Startimes Limited and TelcCom Satellite Limited, over their documentaries on terrorism in the country.
The NBC claimed that the documentaries “glorify the activities of bandits, undermine national security in Nigeria, and contravene the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.”
In his judgment, Justice Oweibo held that, “The issue of the locus standi of SERAP and CJID need to be resolved first being a threshold issue. It is trite that the Statement of Claim must disclose the Plaintiff’s interest sufficient to clothe him/her with the requisite capacity to sue.”
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Justice Oweibo also stated that, “SERAP and CJID have been vested with locus standi. Looking at the provisions of the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules 2009 and particularly the preambles to the Rules, the general requirement of locus standi has been done away with. SERAP and CJID are not meddlesome interlopers.”
According to Justice Oweibo, “I have looked at the affidavit in support of the suit, which in this case stands in place of a Statement of Claim. Considering the core mandates of SERAP and CJID and the affidavit in support of their suit, it is to be seen that this is a public interest case.”
Justice Oweibo dismissed the objections raised by the NBC’s counsel and upheld SERAP’s and CJID’s arguments. Consequently, the court entered judgment in favour of SERAP and CJID and against the NBC.
Justice Oweibo’s judgment, dated 13 June, 2024, read in part: “This is an action alleging breach of the fundamental rights of SERAP and CJID to freedom of expression, access to information and media freedom and fair hearing guaranteed under sections 22, 36 and 39 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended].”
The court also granted the following reliefs:
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