By Our Reporters
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has intercepted over 2.3 million tablets of illicit pharmaceutical opioids and other psychoactive substances meant for distribution in seven Northern states.
NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi, in a statement issued on Sunday, said the interception followed a series of interdiction operations by operatives of the Agency in the past week.Babafemi said the drugs were heading to Borno, Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara, Gombe and Nasarawa states.
He disclosed that a total of two million three hundred and twenty-five thousand, five hundred and fifty-three (2,325,553.00) tablets and capsules of Tramadol, Pregabalin, Hypnox, Diazepam and Exol-5, including 7,353 bottles of a new psychoactive substance locally called Akuskura were seized from locations across Kaduna, Kogi, Sokoto, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
According to Babafemi, a drug dealer, Umar Sanusi, was apprehended on August 12 during a follow-up operation in Kano and brought back to Kaduna where his consignment of 50 cartons of pregabalin 300mg, containing 750,000 capsules, weighing 375kgs earlier seized along Abuja-Kaduna expressway was counted and weighed in his presence.
On the same day, NDLEA operatives also intercepted along Abuja-Kaduna road 7,068 bottles of a new dangerous substance of abuse called Akuskura meant for Kaduna, Zamfara, Gombe, Kano and Borno.
He said that the recipients of those drugs in Kaduna and Zamfara have been arrested during follow-up operations.
On August 13th, Babafemi said that not less than 285 bottles of the NPS were recovered from a dealer, Abubakar Ahmad, along the same highway.
He noted that in Kogi, no fewer than 696,000 tablets of Tramadol and Exol-5, among others loaded into a truck at Onitsha, Anambra State and heading to Maiduguri, Borno State, were seized along the Okene-Abuja expressway on August 19.
NDLEA operatives also recovered 300,000 tablets of Diazepam from a suspect, Faruku Bello, 30, in Sokoto state on August 17.
Similarly, the NDLEA spokesman anti-narcotic officers at the weekend intercepted a bus loaded with 323, 200 tablets of Tramadol 225mg and others at Onitsha, Anambra state heading to Nasarawa State.
“Driver of the vehicle, Osita Nwobodo, 45, who made fruitless bids to compromise the operatives is now in custody” the statement said.
