Kanyi Okeke
A petrol tanker with plate number XT 285 GGE conveying 656.2 Kg of Cannabis Sativa also known as Indian hemp was impounded by men of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), in the Kpasham Demsa Local Government Area of Adamawa State.
The director of the Adamawa State command of the agency, Hassan A. Zungeru who briefed the press yesterday at the state headquarters on the activities of the agency, paraded the driver of the tanker, the conductor and one Godiya Linus, the suspected dealer.
According to Mr Zungeru the suspects were arrested with 79 bags of the drug loaded in a petroleum tanker, coming from Owo, Ondo State.
“The drugs were meant for distribution in Ngurore, which is now being referred to as a hard drug depot,” Mr Zungeru said.
He said the arrest of the tanker was made possible by intelligence and a prior clampdown on Ngurore, with the information gathered from that raid playing a key role in the arrest of the petrol tanker.
“The arrest of the tanker otherwise could have been difficult on the highway because most tanker drivers hardly would stop at the check point,” Mr Zungeru said. “This arrest was made based on intelligence gathering. It would not have been easy for those at the check point to recognise that the petroleum tanker was carrying this drug. So based on the information and intelligence developed by the agency, that was how we were able to arrest the tanker. You hardly would suspect that a tanker would carry Indian hemp.”
The Adamawa State command of the agency which said it has recently recovered 104 bags of Indian hemp, the weight and value of which is put at 1,017.3 Kg and monetary value of ₦2,288,000, pointed out that it is worried about the origin of most of the drugs coming into the state being traceable to a particular state in the South West of the country.
Targeting source
Mr Zungeru remarked that incidentally the origin is “the same source from which five persons remanded in prison custody” three months ago by the agency took supply of 25 bags of hemp.
Mr Zungeru said, “This arrest is a follow-up to the arrest made from Ngurore about three months ago in which five suspects (already remanded in prison custody) were arrested with 25 bags of cannabis sativa (a.k.a Indian hemp) weighing 216.2 Kg also coming from the same place.”
He maintained that the NDLEA was working harder to “block supply of the drug from wherever it may be coming from”.
On curbing further trafficking of drugs, Mr Zungeru said he has directed a more “vigorous stop and search”.
“It is a directive from the state command headquarters that all the area commanders and field commanders should endeavour to have a vigorous stop and search in all their locations,” Zungeru said. “Even all these 911 trucks, starlet and the new Sienna that you know, they are all used in carrying drugs. But it depends on the ones that are eventually caught.”
As part of the success recorded in curbing the illicit drug trade which the NDLEA said it was waging by targeting the supply end, the agency disclosed the discovery and destruction of a large acre of Indian hemp farm in the Madagali Local Government Area of the state recently.
Source: 234NEXT
