Officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on patrol along the Aba-Owerri Expressway have intercepted five pregnant teenage girls suspected to be victims of child trafficking.
It was gathered that the victims were picked up while being relocated from their hideout in the Naze area of Owerri to the Ikenegbu area of the Imo State capital.
NDLEA spokesman Femi Babafemi disclosed this in a Sunday statement.
The victims Chioma Emmanuel, Uma Faith, Divine Adimonye, Opara Gift, and Amarachi Mbata were rescued on Wednesday, Babafemi stated.
“In their statements, they claimed they didn’t know the men who impregnated them. The Imo state command of the agency has since been directed to hand them over to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, for further investigations,” he added.
He said fresh attempts to export various quantities of methamphetamine and skunk by members of some transnational drug trafficking organisations through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja and courier companies in Lagos State, were again thwarted by operatives of the NDLEA, who intercepted the illicit drug consignments concealed in different items.
Similarly, on Tuesday, NDLEA operatives intercepted an intending passenger, Ugwu Tochukwu, on his way to Oman, while trying to board a Qatar Airways flight at the Lagos airport. Upon a thorough search of his luggage, 7.50 kilogrammes of skunk were discovered concealed inside crayfish mixed with dry bitter leaf.
This is even as some NDLEA officers of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigations attached to some courier companies also intercepted Dubai-bound 2.9 kilogrammes of skunk and 14 grammes of methamphetamine concealed in bags of semovita and soles of ladies’ high heel shoes respectively.
“While two suspects Moses Akowe, 32, and Sunday Gabriel, 31, were arrested with 227.1 kgs of cannabis on Tuesday, September 11 at Ikebe village, Ankpa LGA, Kogi state, a female suspect, Bilikisu Salako, 35, was nabbed with 108 kgs of same substance on Saturday, September 16 in the Ifo area of Ogun State.
“A total of 100 blocks of cannabis weighing 55 kgs and 600 bottles of codeine-based syrup seized from the duo of Salisu Murtala and Shafi’u Dahiru on Tuesday, September 11 along Abuja road have been traced to two other suspects – Muntari Nasiru and Yusuf Ali who were arrested in follow up operations in Kano.”
Credit: Channels Television
