A Chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in one of the local government area of Ekiti State has been arrested by the operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for trafficking illicit drug.
The Chairman in Ijero Ekiti local government area, Babatunde Babade, 45, according to a statement by the spokesman of NDLEA, Femi Babafemi was arrested along with two others; Ilesanmi Shola, 35, and Babajide Johnson, 45, for trafficking illicit drug.
According to Babafemi, the transport union leader was caught with 52.5 kilogrammes of skunk in Akure, the Ondo state capital following intelligence that he was conveying bags of the banned drug in his blue Mazda 1997 model car with registration number: Ekiti JER 194 AE from Akure to Ekiti state.
He said Babade, popularly called BB, was taken into custody along with others soon after his arrest at about 2pm on Sunday 18th July, 2021 for interrogation, and in his statement, he admitted he owns the vehicle used for conveying the drug and further confessed that the car was earlier intercepted by some security agents who detained the two other suspects, his car and eight bags containing cannabis sativa while his brother who drove the vehicle fled.
He however claimed that following his intervention, the security agents released the suspects and his car to him after taking two of the eight bags containing the drug and sixty thousand naira (N60, 000) from him, before he later ran into NDLEA officers while on his way back to Ekiti.
In another development, officers of the Benue state command of the agency have intercepted another suspected interstate drug trafficker, 29-year-old Odinaka Ugwuanyi along Apir road, Makurdi with 124,000 tablets of Tramadol, Diazepam and Exol-5, all weighing 22.55 kilogrammes.
The suspect, who arrested at about 8am on Saturday 17th July, 2021 in a commercial vehicle, said he is from Nsukka local government area of Enugu state, but however claimed another passenger he knows who sat next to him in the vehicle dropped the bag containing the drugs with him and fled upon sighting NDLEA officers.
Meanwhile, the Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (Retd) has commended the doggedness of the commanders, officers and men of the Ondo and Benue state Commands of the agency in the ongoing offensive action against drug barons, traffickers and peddlers.
He however charged them along with their colleagues in other commands to remain resolute in the discharge of their constitutional responsibilities.
