The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency in Ogun State has said four persons have been sentenced to life imprisonment for drug trafficking in the last six months.
Two others, the agency said, were convicted and sentenced to different jail terms for illicit drug-related offences, while it seized 3.5 tonnes of drugs worth about N25m within the same period.
The State Commander of the NDLEA, Mr. Mohammed Mohammed, stated these in an interview with our correspondent in Abeokuta on Friday.
One of the drug couriers, Mohammed said, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Federal High Court sitting in Abeokuta for carrying 250 grams of drugs.
“In the last six months, the command has been able to seize about 3.5 tonnes of cannabis sativaand we have secured about six convictions, four of which were life imprisonments and the drug involved in the life imprisonment sentence were less than 500g.
“A particular one was just 250g and the court gave him life imprisonment and of course, that is the position of the law.
“The judge applied the law the way it is and it’s a way of deterring other people that even if it is one gramme, the law is there to catch up with you,” he said.
The NDLEA commander said the command destroyed about 15 tonnes of cannabis valued at N100m last May.
He appealed to the state and Federal Government to come to the aid of the agency by providing it with the tools that would enhance its functions.
In a related development, a 39-year-old South African woman of Zulu tribe, Duru Gcinukwazi Lindiwe, has been arrested with 5.5kg of substance methamphetamine allegedly hidden in tins of sardine and her luggage. Officials of the NDLEA at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, detected the drugs during routine search at the centre screening area of the departure hall.
The spokesman for the NDLEA, Mitchell Ofoyeju, said the suspect, a street cleaner in Johannesburg, was apprehended during the outward screening of passengers on a South African airline flight to Johannesburg, South Africa.
Ofoyeju said the drug had an estimated street value of N15m
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