By Jemimah Wellington, JKNewsMedia Reporter
PILGRIMS BOUND for Saudi Arabia were intercepted at Kano Airport with cocaine pellets in their bodies, leading to the unmasking of a major trafficking syndicate operating under the guise of religious pilgrimage.
Two suspected couriers, Ibrahim Umar Mustapha and Muhammad Siraj Shifado, were arrested during final screening on Monday 26th May while boarding Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 940 to Jeddah.
Scans revealed they had ingested illicit drugs, and under excretion observation, each passed 45 wraps of cocaine—totalling 1.04kg.
The bust sparked immediate action. Investigations pointed to a coordinated drug trafficking network.
Within 48 hours, three alleged ringleaders—Abubakar Muhammad, Abdulhakeem Muhammed Tijjani, and Muhammad Aji Shugaba—were apprehended in Kano in a targeted NDLEA operation executed on 27th and 28th May.
On the same day, NDLEA operatives at Kano Airport also detained 60-year-old businessman Chinedu Leonard Okigbo while he attempted to board a Qatar Airways flight to Iran. Body scans showed he had swallowed 65 wraps of cocaine, weighing 1.41kg.
Further south, NDLEA operations at the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, Onne, in Rivers State, uncovered a massive consignment of smuggled pharmaceuticals between 28th and 30th May.
A total of 825,200 bottles of codeine-based syrup and trodol—valued at ₦5.77 billion—were seized. An additional 5.1 million tapentadol 225mg pills, estimated at ₦3.57 billion, were also recovered, bringing the total seizure to ₦9.346 billion in street value.
In a separate operation along the Kano-Maiduguri highway on 30th May, two suspects—Abubakar Hussein and Sahabi Adamu—were intercepted in possession of $900,000 in suspected counterfeit cash. The case has been referred to the appropriate agency for detailed investigation.
NDLEA officers in Adamawa State on 27th May recovered 390 compressed blocks of skunk cannabis weighing 275.3kg from an abandoned Toyota Sienna along the Ngurore-Yola Road.
In Ilorin, Kwara State, a female suspect, Alhaja Mutiat Abdul-Fatai, was arrested on 31st May at Oja Oba with various illicit opioids including tramadol, flunitrazepam, and codeine-based syrup.
Across the country, NDLEA sustained its War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) advocacy through school-based sensitisation programmes, reaching institutions in Katsina, Enugu, Anambra, Kano, and Cross River states.
The Chairman and Chief Executive of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), commended the officers involved in the latest operations, praising the continued commitment to balancing drug supply suppression with community-based demand reduction efforts.
