He said: “Nigeria’s challenges should not just be left with the nation’s leaders alone to solve.
“The biggest problem we have is that every president that comes, after some time, Nigerians will say, ‘We are not satisfied.’”
Na’Allah said this in an interview on a nationa television programme.
“But what Nigerians have failed to understand is: what is the reason?”
The former Senate Deputy Minority Leader noted that the challenges facing the nation require collective efforts to overcome.
“Nigerians have failed to understand that there must be something somewhere that is working against the smooth running of the affairs of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. All of us have decided not to look at it; we would rather say ‘it is Mr. President.’
“It’s an issue of collective responsibility. I’m telling you: go and look at the constitution. Look at the oath of office that each elected official has taken before assuming office, and then put it on their faces and tell me how many of them have succeeded in keeping to the spirit of that constitution,” the senator stated.
Na’Allah described Nigeria’s Constitution as one of the best in the world, arguing that the country’s major challenge lies not in the law itself but in its implementation.
“Our constitution is one of the best documents you can find anywhere in the world. Whether you believe me or you don’t believe me, that’s a different matter.
“Our major issue is those charged with the responsibility of implementing the letter and spirit of the constitution,” he said.
The former lawmaker, who represented Kebbi South in the Red Chamber, also weighed in on the recent defections to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He said the mass exodus of politicians from opposition parties does not automatically guarantee victory in the 2027 general election.
“The APC has to work to seriously convince the people that whatever they are going through is reasonably necessary for the purpose of positioning the country for a greater future.
“I can conveniently say that no party was formed and came with the best intentions for Nigeria, better than the APC,” he added.
In a statement yesterday in Abuja by his Technical Assistant (Media), Ahmad Muazu, the NAHCON chairman said the conclusion of the accommodation uploads and approval/acceptance by the Saudi Ministry of Hajj was in line with the directive of Vice President Kashim Shettima that all critical Hajj arrangements should be finalised within the approved Saudi timelines to safeguard Nigeria’s operational interests.
He acknowledged the guidance and support of the Vice President throughout the process as well as the role played by the high-level delegation sent to Saudi Arabia, the NAHCON Board, the Nusuk Masar team, the leadership of the Forum of State Pilgrims Welfare Boards, NAHCON’s workers and relevant stakeholders involved in the accommodation process.
With the conclusion of the arrangements, Usman said Nigeria has secured its accommodation for this year’s Hajj and is positioned among countries that have completed the critical requirement within the prescribed timelines.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov yesterday reaffirmed his country’s position on the “unacceptability” of economic and military pressure on Cuba, as he spoke to his counterpart from the Caribbean island over phone.
A statement by the Foreign Ministry said Lavrov and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla discussed “priority issues of bilateral cooperation and the international agenda.”
“The Russian side reaffirmed its principled position regarding the unacceptability of economic and military pressure on Cuba, including the disruption of energy supplies to the island, which threatens to seriously worsen the economic and humanitarian situation in the country,” the statement added.
A “firm commitment” to continue providing Cuba with the “necessary political and material support” was expressed during the talks, the statement said, adding that the top diplomats also discussed the schedule of upcoming bilateral contacts.
The conversation comes days after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency and establishing a process to impose tariffs on goods from countries that sell or otherwise provide oil to Cuba.
According to a White House fact sheet on the executive order, the move is intended to protect US national security and foreign policy interests by pressuring Cuba over what the administration calls its “malign actions and policies.”
The order, which Trump signed on Thursday, authorises Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to take “all necessary actions,” including issuing rules and guidance, to implement the tariff system and related measures.
“The president may modify the order if Cuba or affected countries take significant steps to address the threat or align with US national security and foreign policy objectives,” according to the order.
In response, Russia said it opposes unilateral sanctions against sovereign independent states, defining such measures as “categorically unacceptable.”
About 1,000 migrants may have gone missing in the central Mediterranean during extreme weather conditions caused by Cyclone Harry in mid-January, according to the Italian NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans.
The NGO said testimonies collected by Refugees in Libya and Tunisia point to what could be one of the deadliest tragedies on the central Mediterranean migration route in recent years, accusing Italian and Maltese authorities of a lack of information and rescue efforts.
“The contours of the greatest tragedy in recent years are taking shape along the central Mediterranean routes, and the governments of Italy and Malta remain silent and do nothing,” Laura Marmorale, president of Mediterranea Saving Humans, said in a statement yesterday.
According to official information transmitted via satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat messages by Rome’s Maritime Rescue Coordination Center, at least 380 people were reported missing at sea as of Jan. 24.
The alert covered eight separate search and rescue cases involving boats that departed from the Tunisian city of Sfax between Jan. 14 and Jan. 21. Those boats reportedly carried a total of around 380 migrants, including women and children.
As of Jan. 24, none of the vessels had been located, and no confirmed rescues had been reported, according to the NGO.
The departures coincided with severe weather conditions in the central Mediterranean, including waves exceeding 7 meters (22 feet) and wind gusts of more than 54 knots, attributed to Cyclone Harry.
The group said these were among the most dangerous maritime conditions recorded in the area in the past two decades.
The West African Women Association (WAWA) has honoured distinguished personalities and inducted new board members at its investiture and awards ceremony held in Lagos.
The event, which attracted women leaders, development advocates and stakeholders from across the country, marked a new phase of leadership consolidation, continuity and institutional strengthening within the association.
Speaking at the ceremony, WAWA leader Chief Mrs. Bola Adekunle-Carew (JP) underscored the importance of structured leadership, unity and responsible followership, noting that no organisation could thrive without clear direction and collective commitment.
“There is never a vacuum in leadership. For any organisation to survive, there must be order, coordination and people willing to serve,” Sir Chris Akwarrandu, a board member, said.
Participants reflected on the development challenges confronting women over the past three decades, particularly policy limitations and socio-cultural barriers that have hindered women’s economic participation and advancement.
Senator Barrister Dr. Joy Emodi, also a board member, recalled the impact of past empowerment initiatives such as the Better Life Programme, which mobilised women into cooperatives and transformed small-scale production — including shea butter processing — into viable large-scale economic enterprises.
The event also revisited the historical role of ECOWAS and other regional institutions in promoting women’s integration, advocacy and the institutional protection of women’s rights across Africa.
Board Secretary, Chief Agnes Otobo-Ojehomo, urged women to embrace unity, discipline and economic independence as essential pillars for sustainable national growth.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed yesterday that the second round of the U.S.-mediated Russia-Ukraine talks will take place in Abu Dhabi tomorrow and Thursday.
Speaking at a media briefing in Moscow, Peskov said the talks originally scheduled for Feb. 1 was postponed to adjust the schedules of all participants.
“Indeed, Wednesday-Thursday, this second round will take place. In Abu Dhabi, this, too, we can confirm,” Peskov said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Sunday that the second round of talks that had to take place on Feb.1 was rescheduled for Feb. 4-5.
Commenting on the negotiation progress, Peskov said: “On some issues, we have clearly progressed because there were discussions and conversations, and on some issues, it is easier to find common ground.”
At the same time, there are issues where finding common ground is harder, he said, adding: “Unfortunately, convergence cannot yet be confirmed there.”
Asked whether the energy truce is still in effect, Peskov said: “I have nothing to add to what I told you at the previous conference call, where we talked specifically about Feb. 1.”
Last week, Peskov said the Russian side agreed to the proposal of US President Donald Trump not to strike at the Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to create favorable conditions for negotiations in Abu Dhabi.
Regarding the possibility of a meeting between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Peskov reiterated the invitation to the Ukrainian leader to come to Moscow.
“Zelensky offers contacts. Putin said that they are possible in Moscow. This position remains ours. It is sufficiently consistent,” he said. “We retain our openness to negotiations. You see that work is being done through working groups. We welcome this, and we are ready to continue this work in the interests of resolving the situation in Ukraine.”
Impunity is PDP’s other name. With the party’s latest act of impunity ending in a fiasco in Ibadan High Court last Friday, the question on the lips of Nigerians concerned about the health of our democracy and party system are asking is what next?
Following a suit filed by some aggrieved members of the party’s factional leaders late last year, Justice James Omotosho had ordered their Ibadan convention to be halted until the party complies with the statutory requirements of its own constitution, the Nigerian Constitution, and the Electoral Act. He therefore directed the PDP “to go back and put its house in order, and to give the statutory 21-day notice to INEC before it can proceed with the proposed convention.”
Similarly, Sule Lamido, an elder of the party claiming he was denied the opportunity to purchase a nomination form to contest for the party’s chairmanship, in violation of the PDP constitution and guidelines, also secured a Federal High Court injunction suspending the convention.
But without first vacating any of the judgments, PDP sought and secured the help of an Ibadan High Court which, on November 4, 2025, cleared the party to proceed with the national convention.
When Kabiru Tanimu Turaki’s attempt to enforce his faction’s Ibadan phyric victory was resisted by the other faction that had taken control of their Abuja Wadata national secretariat, he sought recognition of the Ibadan convention and validation of the NWC that emerged at the convention from another Ibadan Federal High Court presided over by Uche Agomoh. However, instead of the relief sought, the court last Friday nullified the November 15 -16, 2025 convention on the ground it was conducted in flagrant disobedience to two subsisting judgments of the same court. Turaki and other officials purportedly elected at the convention were barred by the court from parading themselves as national officers of the party forthwith.
Predictably, Turaki’s faction was defiant declaring “We are aware of the judgment of the Federal High Court” but, “Notwithstanding this judgment, the Turaki–led Peoples Democratic Party, which emerged from the Ibadan convention, remains legally intact and unshaken, as we await the authoritative pronouncement of the appellate courts”.
It is often said those destined for ruin, are often out of sheer pride driven to act irrationally. With timetable for the 2027 election already released by INEC and with otherwise loyal PDP party members in search for alternative platform to escape a PDP sinking ship in droves, one would have thought these times call for sober reflection with reason prevailing among PDP warring factional leaders.
It is not as if PDP deserves tears of Nigerians if its fate is now sealed. Nigerians, except those playing the ostrich, still remember their ongoing nightmare was a direct result of 16 years of PDP deliberate and calculated assault on our economy and the general health of our nation. It was their confiscation and conversion of our national resources to personal use of their members that brought our nation to ruins With air of invulnerability, they went on to share the nation’s national patrimony kept in their temporary care for our grandchildren and great grandchildren. If death is the wages of sin, that PDP deserves s to die is not debatable.
But Nigerians, a much forgiving people did not want PDP to die. They want it to live even if not totally out of altruism. It is on record that for the first 16 years of the fourth republic, PDP became a threat to our budding democracy achieved through intense struggle, sweat and blood. It was an era of thriving anti-democratic elements such as Olusegun Obasanjo, David Mark Atiku Abubakar, A Ali, men who purely for sadistic humour irreverently danced on the tombs of those who made the supreme sacrifice that democracy may thrive in our land.
Of course there are other reasons Nigerians should have no restraint singing the traditional night prayer- Nunc Dimittis for the passage of PDP if that is its ordained fate. For instance this is a party of warring factional leaders for whom honour counts for little when they are engaged in war of attrition over illegal sharing of our national resources. It was PDP leaders that told Nigerians which of them stole what.
It was Obasanjo’s PDP children including Atiku Abubakar and Dino Melaiye who first attempted to disrobe their father on the street by accusing him of alleged corruption. The former alleged his principal directed him to deploy state resources to buy a car for his concubine and the later asking the following rhetorical question following their principal’s labelling of the National Assembly as an assemblage of ‘pen robbers’: “Has Baba forgotten it was not the 8th assembly that collected ‘Ghana must go bags’ from him for his failed third term debacle?
It was Bukola Saraki who became the whistle-blower in the fuel subsidy scam through which PDP stalwarts and their siblings defrauded the nation of billons of naira. It was also Saraki who personally confessed that he literarily ‘stole’ the presidency of the 8th assembly. It was David Mark who betrayed his greed by going to court to pre-empt EFCC that had raised question of impropriety in his process of buying the senate mansion, a national patrimony which did not fall under items for sale under government monetization policy.
PDP alive is probably as dangerous as the one that will ultimately end up in hell. But for our own selfish interest, we need it alive to give legitimacy to our budding democracy which thrives better under a multi-party system. This is why in spite of PDP capital sins, Nigerians have quietly prayed and hoped it stops digging itself into the hole.
Unfortunately neither Nigerians’ past fervent prayers nor its envisioning of better future for PDP has stopped it from self-destruct.
It is for instance on record that in 2013, Atiku Abubakar, ever in search of presidential platform at every election season , along with Usman Bugaje, his adviser, pulled out of PDP to join forces with Bukola Saraki and some PDP governors to form nPDP. They eventually joined forces with newly formed APC. That betrayal of their party was all untested APC needed to collect power from weakened PDP.
In 2019, with characteristic display of air of invulnerability of the Obasanjo and Tony Anenih’s era of ‘do or die elections’, Atiku, Saraki and their group headed back to PDP. But with APC now consolidated in power, PDP was roundly defeated by President Buhari in spite of his-first term’s lack-lustre performance
A leopard does not change its spots. In 2023, PDP leaders including Atiku Abubakar, Iyorchia Ayu, David mark and Tambuwal jettisoned their party’s time-tested power rotational policy. They treated party members that disagreed with them with disdain.
Tambuwal was Wike’s trusted ally. He, however at the last minute, came out to play the ethnic and religious card by supporting Atiku Abubakar. They did not stop hitting Wike when he was down. Despite winning 14 of the 17 votes cast by PDP leading lights for the VP slot, Atiku by-passed him and settled for Ifeanyi Okowa, the governor of oil-rich Delta State notorious for generous donations towards successive PDP presidential campaign war-chest. Wike’s answer to Atiku’s impunity was to disallow him from campaigning in which he went on to secure for candidate Bola Tinubu.
It was also curious that PDP did not weigh the consequences of ignoring the legitimate demand of the southeast that was the most important harvester of votes for PDP outside the north. It equally ignored the nuisance value of an opportunistic Peter Obi who, emerging from being a two-term APGA governor, quickly rose to become PDP VP candidate in 2019.
Realising he stood no chance against Atiku in the 2023, PDP presidential primary, he migrated back home to exploit the ethnic and religious sentiments of his equally aggrieved Igbo people. Obi later moved to Lagos and other Nigerian cities with huge Igbo urban immigrants to harvest group Igbo and Christian votes that placed his Labour platform third in the election. His gain was PDP’s loss.
It is apparent the only people that have continued to benefit from impunity since the birth of the fourth republic are its perpetrators. Everyone else including members of party oligarchy, political office holder and seekers, at the end has been a loser. Group interest and personal ambitions of party members, best achieved through compromise are frittered away through zero-sum intra-party struggle. The result is threat to the survival of party system, abuse of the judicial process and a culture of fear and heightened tension. And the cheapest solution according to Justice Omotosho of Abuja High Court is PDP putting its house in order.
The 2025 African Cup of Nations seemed to be running well. All the trains of the competition seemed to be moving in time until we got to the final. The stadium was filled to the rafters because the host country, Morocco was playing. The Morocco Atlas Lions were facing the Senegalese national team known as the Teranga Lions. Two lions in one den, struggling for success, struggling for soccer suzerainty, struggling for stardom.
That setting was explosive. You could cut the tension with a knife. The two teams had played a technically cautious game and for 90 minutes there was no score. Three minutes into extra time, a Senegalese player Pape Gueye fired a superb left footer that shook the back of the Moroccan net. The Senegalese players kicked the air, some punched it in merriment. But the referee Jean-Jacques Ndala from the Democratic Republic of Congo, disallowed the goal without verifying from the Video Assistant Referee (VAR). A few minutes later the referee awarded a penalty against Senegal and the Senegalese thought that was a piece of injustice that could do them in. Their coach, Pape Thiaw angrily asked his players to leave the pitch. For them Senegal’s misfortune was likely to become Morocco’s good fortune. This was a tense situation that could mar Africa’s football. But there were mixed feelings, some people were enthralled while some others were appalled.
Football, also known as the beautiful game, has moved from being a game to being a game changer, a game changer for footballers and for countries. People who play football in the big leagues are millionaires today, countries that win continental and global football tournaments are widely respected globally. So the stakes are higher for players, clubs and countries than hitherto.
In the middle of the game is the referee, the man or woman who decides how the game is to be played for the benefit of the game. Managing a football match fairly is the referee’s major challenge. But there are four reasons why some decisions made by referees are sometimes disputed. One, a referee is a human being and so he or she can make mistakes, major or minor in the course of the game. Two, referee’s decisions are made within seconds and that leaves him or her with no room for much thinking before his or her whistle goes. Three, some coaches engage in a lot of drama, throwing their hands up in despair, shouting at referees for unfair decisions or talking to the linesman on his side of the field. All of these theatrical displays are aimed at ensuring that the referee’s decisions are favourable to his team. Four, most football players deserve to be actors in Hollywood. Virtually all of them pretend to be innocent by lifting their hands in the sky when they commit a foul; some wag their fingers at the referee, some look sternly and viciously at the referee; some claim to be wounded through a tackle by an opponent by rolling and rolling on the field. If someone is wounded how can he keep rolling so easily like a gymnast? Some hold any part of their body and pretend that they can’t even walk and if the referee calls for a stretcher you may see them get up, limp a little and continue with the game. The trick may have been to waste a few minutes if that will help his team.
So entertainment on the football pitch today has three components namely: dribbling, goal scoring and theatricals. All of these are happening today because football has become a mega bucks business that brings to people both fame and fortune. So these three components especially the third are threatening to change the nature of the game. It means that Kali, the Indian mother goddess in whom the creative principle and the destructive principle are joined is at work in today’s football.
There have always been mistakes in football. To reduce these mistakes the football authorities decided to introduce the use of the Video Assistant Referee device to assist the referee to make the right decision when controversy inserts itself in the game. It was a mistake for the referee to refuse to verify through VAR if the goal scored by Senegal was a valid goal or not. It was also a mistake for the Senegalese coach Pape Thiaw to order his players to discontinue with the game. Decisions on the pitch are made, not by the coaches or the players of the two teams but by the referee. All coaches and players are bound by the decisions of the referee in the spirit of sportsmanship whether they agree with those decisions or not. By telling his players to move to the locker room thus bringing the match and the tournament to an abrupt end, the Senegalese coach was driving a nail into the coffin of African football. People who continue to see Africa as a dark continent where there is little or no positive development would have been given more lethal weapons to use against the continent.
At present Africa is perceived by some people in the developed world as a continent of hunger and poverty, illegal immigrants, coup plotters, asylum seekers, debtors and dictators who run a feeding bottle economy and who are sit-tight leaders. Football anarchy would have worsened the picture.
One man saved the day. He ran to the locker room and told his colleagues to return to the field of play. The full details of what happened there are not known but what is known is that a player called Sadio Mane made the difference. Mane was not the coach or captain or vice-captain. He was just one of the players, a famous one wearing number 10 jersey. He didn’t need to wear the coach’s jersey or the captain’s arm band to do what was right for Senegal, Africa and football. In football, today good manners and proper etiquette are in the intensive care unit. With steam-rising frustration, those who manage football are wondering how we got to this point. They are punishing offenders but the offences are still piling up. Even though it is the person who throws off ashes that the ashes follow, the game of football can be better served by more heroes like Mane.
Some people might think as Will Rogers said that “being a hero is the shortest-lived profession on earth.” However, being a hero is virtuous. Mane’s name will remain permanently on the minds of Africans and football lovers worldwide because he performed magic when mayhem was going to happen and football was going to get a kick in the face.
Mane began his professional football career with Ligue 2 Club Metz at age 19. He also played for Southampton where he set a new Premier League record for the fastest hat trick record in 176 seconds in a 6-1 win over Aston Villa in 2015. But it was at Liverpool which he joined in 2016 that he achieved global recognition. He finished as the UEFA Champions League joint top scorer in 2018-2019 season winning the Premier League Golden Boot. In October 2021, he scored his 100th Premier League goal becoming the third African to reach that landmark. The two footballers that got there before him were Didier Drogba and Mohammed Salah. At the 2021 African Cup of Nations, Mane starred for his country which won the tournament for the first time. He clinched the player of the tournament award. He made his 100th appearance for Senegal on November 18, 2023. When Senegal won the AFCON on January 18, by defeating Morocco 1-0, he earned the Best Player of the Tournament Award. Mane plays as a left winger who scores with both feet and head winning astonishing aerial battles even though he is only 5’9” in height. He has considerable speed, agility, ball control and fantastic dribbling skills which have made him a terror to his opponents.
Now with what he did in Morocco on January 18, he has added more dignity to his persona than hitherto. He has delivered, by his action at AFCON 2025, a bunch of flowers to African football and that fragrance will stay with him forever. Humble and amiable, Mane remains a man with a fighting spirit, a fighter for good causes for club and country; he remains a role model for youths and a leader that other less talented leaders ought to emulate globally.
Mane has also made massive investment in philanthropic activities that benefit schools, hospitals and football in his country and he is not making any noise about them. He is a quiet giver who does not blow his trumpet. He prefers that his deeds speak eloquently for him.
When the AFCON trophy was handed over to the Senegal captain, he removed the captain’s arm band and fixed it on Mane’s arm and handed over the trophy to Mane. That action spoke louder than a million words: Mane was the man of the moment.
With more than 25 years in the House of Representatives, Hon. Nicholas Mutu, is the longest-serving member of Nigeria’s lower legislative chamber, the House of Representatives.
With an unbroken streak since the start of the 4th Republic in 1999, this year marks 27 years for the politician in the House of Representatives.
Mutu attended Rivers State School of Basic Studies where he graduated in 1986.
He proceeded to St. Clements University Caicos/Ireland, British West Indies, and graduated in 2003.
He served as chairman of the Bomadi Local Government Council from 1996 to 1997.
In 1999, he was elected under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a member representing Bomadi/Patani Federal Constituency, and has remained a federal lawmaker till date.
He was the Chairman, House Committee on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), a position he held across multiple legislative sessions (from 2009 to 2019). Under his leadership, the Committee was noted for advancing accountability and promoting the interests of oil-producing communities.
He has also served in several other committees including; Banking & Currency, Niger Delta, Governmental Affairs, Sports, and Federal Capital Territory.
Mutu has consistently empowered his constituents through scholarship schemes, job creation programmes, youth and women empowerment drives, health missions, and infrastructural interventions,
In 2025, he defected from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He explained that his decision was driven by unresolved internal divisions within the PDP at both the national and zonal levels.
During the session, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Tajudden Abbas, formally recognized Mutu’s defection and welcomed him to the APC fold.
Hon. Abbas, in his address to the House, acknowledged Mutu as the oldest member of the Nigerian parliament, having served continuously in the House of Representatives since 1999.
He praised Mutu for his long-standing service and highlighted the significance of his defection.
Mutu is a grassroots politician, and this evident in the winning of his re-election in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, 2023 all under the platform of PDP.
There are indications that he is still seeking re-election in 2027.
…over 9,939kg Loud, Colos, Skunk seized in Lagos, Niger, Edo, Anambra, Ondo raids;
..12,500 ampoules of pentazocine injection recovered in Kano
A Brazil-based Nigerian businessman, Uche Franklin Onyekwere, has been arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the arrival hall of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos for concealing parcels of cocaine in his genitals and soles of his footwear.
Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA Headquarters, Abuja, Femi Babafemi, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday.
Babafemi said Onyekwere was arrested last Thursday during the inward clearance of South African Airways flight passengers arriving from Brazil via Johannesburg following processed intelligence.
Babafemi said when the 47-year-old suspect was taken for full body scan, the result confirmed illicit drug concealment.
He said, “As a result, he was subjected to a strip search, during which a big parcel of white powdery substance, which later tested positive for cocaine, was discovered wrapped around his right thigh. A further search revealed two additional wraps of the same substance concealed in the sole of a pair of flat shoes worn by the suspect. In all, three large wraps of cocaine, with a gross weight of 1.60 kilograms, were recovered from his body and footwear.
“During a preliminary interview, the suspect revealed he purchased the illicit drug consignment in Brazil with the intention to resell the cocaine in Nigeria in order to raise capital to boost his business and also finance the naming ceremony of his newly born child. The suspect who lives in Rua Ever, Mulariuha, São Paulo, claimed that he has been living in Brazil since 2008 while he has been operating a toy business for about nine years.”
Babafemi said at the Tincan seaport in Lagos, a total of 55 jumbo bags of Canadian Loud, a strong strain of cannabis with a gross weight of 1,183 kilograms imported from Montreal, Canada in a container was discovered on Wednesday, during a joint examination of the shipment by NDLEA officers, Customs and other security agencies.
He said the illicit consignments were hidden inside two vehicles: a Hyundai SUV and a Toyota Matrix car.
The statement read, “In Niger state, NDLEA operatives acting on credible intelligence in the early hours of Tuesday 26th January intercepted a long truck marked T 31589 LA along Dei-Dei Abuja expressway where they arrested the trio of Andy Chidogu, 49; Kenneth Ogene, 45; and Sadiq Olanrewaju, 27, for conveying 176 bags of skunk, a strain of cannabis weighing 2,735 kilograms and 1 kilogram of Colorado, a synthetic cannabis, concealed in the truck.
“Investigations revealed that Kenneth Ogene who drives the truck left Lagos on 23rd January loaded with 800 bags of flour to Ekpoma, Edo State and arrived the following day 24th January. In Ekpoma, he then negotiated to transport the 176 bags of skunk and 1kg Colos for N1.7million.”
Babafemi said in another interdiction operation, NDLEA operatives in Edo state on Tuesday arrested Shaibu Yusuf along Auchi-Abuja express road while looking for a vehicle to convey 66 bags of skunk concealed in bags of charcoal, weighing 792kg, to Katsina.
He said also, in Edo, operatives supported by Nigerian Army personnel on Wednesday 28th January raided a cannabis farm at Ebora camp, Ilushi in Esan South East LGA where 4,063.675kg skunk was destroyed on over 1.6 hectares farmland while 328kg processed cannabis and its seeds were recovered.
Suspects arrested at the camp include: Jeremiah Nwodeh, 46; Chukwudi Pius,33; Pius Ogaba, 46; and Onora Kwene, 35.
Babafemi said, “In Anambra state, NDLEA operatives on Wednesday 28th January intercepted a cement truck at Upper Iweka Onitsha, heading to Nkpor. A search of the trailer revealed that bags of cement were used to conceal 345.2kg skunk owned Abum Okeke, 42, who was one of the three occupants of the truck at the time of arrest.
“At least, two suspects: Tunde Ogundele,39, and Soji Elegbelye, 46, were on Monday 26th January arrested at Eleyewo community in Akure North area of Ondo state, in connection with the seizure of 473kg skunk, while NDLEA operatives in Kano on same day nabbed Abdullahi Usman, 45, at Murtala Mohammed way, with 12,500 ampoules of pentazocine injection recovered from him. Not less than 4,390 pills of tramadol were seized from another suspect Musa Shuaibu, 42, when he was arrested in Gaya area of Kano on Tuesday 27th January.
“While Oragwan Ekene was arrested on Friday 30th January at Okeyson park, Alaba, Lagos, with 15.5kg skunk heading to Onitsha, Anambra state with the illicit consignment, 3.5kg of same psychoactive substance was recovered from a sound system and two packets of cereal found in the luggage of Omang Peter Edward at the arrival tarmac of Seme border, Badagry on Tuesday 27th January. The suspect was coming from Cotonou, Benin Republic into Lagos.”
He said across all Commands and formations of the Agency nationwide, NDLEA officers continued their War Against Drug Abuse, (WADA), sensitization activities in schools, worship centres, work places and communities among others in the past week.
These, he said, include: WADA enlightenment lecture to students and staff of Government Day Junior Secondary School, Jaji Maji, Yobe; Boys Technical College, Aba, Abia; Government Technical and Vocational College, Obollo Orie, Enugu; St. John’s R.C.M Primary School, Odomola Eredo, Epe, Lagos; Yandaki Primary School, Kaita, Katsina and Seed of Life College, Ibadan, Oyo state, among others.
“While commending the officers and men of the MMIA, Tincan, Niger, Lagos, Edo, Anambra, Ondo, and Kano Commands for the arrests, seizures and their professionalism, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd) enjoined them and their colleagues across the country to continue the current balanced approach to their drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction efforts;” the statement read.
