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Ex-beauty queen declared wanted for drug offence surrenders to NDLEA

A wanted ex-beauty queen, Ms Aderinoye Queen Christmas, also known as Ms Queen Oluwadamilola Aderinoye, has surrendered to the Lagos Command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

A statement by the Director, Media and Advocacy of the NDLEA, Mr Femi Babafemi, on Sunday said the former beauty queen surrendered herself after about eight months in hiding.

She was declared wanted by the agency in January after she escaped from her Lekki, Lagos, residence when NDLEA operatives raided her apartment at Oral Estate, Lekki, on 24th January following credible intelligence that she deals in illicit substances.

Babafemi said the suspect was Miss Commonwealth Nigeria Culture 2015/2016 and the founder of the Queen Christmas Foundation.

Recovered from her home during the search witnessed by the estate officials include 606 grammes of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, an electronic weighing scale, large quantities of drugs packing plastics, a black RAV 4 SUV marked Lagos KSF 872 GQ, and her picture frame, among others.

The suspect, who claimed she had been hiding in Akure, Ondo State, since January, when she escaped arrest in Lekki, Lagos, however, surrendered to the agency on 28th August.

The statement further stated that operatives of the NDLEA intercepted a total of 31, 124, 600 pills of tramadol 225 mg and bottles of codeine-based syrup worth over N17,932,200,000.00 in street value at the Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, Rivers State, and Tincan Seaport in Lagos.

According to the statement, the seizures were made following intelligence processed by the Agency on the movement of the shipments from their port of origin in India, leading to a demand for a 100 per cent joint examination of the watch-listed containers with the Nigerian Customs Service and other sister security agencies.

A breakdown of the seizures showed that 350,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup were recovered from two containers at Tincan Port in Lagos on the 29th and 30th of August, 2024. Each of the two containers had 175,000 bottles of the opioid.

At the Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, NDLEA operatives equally intercepted a total of 447 cartons of tramadol 225 mg containing 29, 840,000 pills of the opioid as well as 380,000 bottles of codeine syrup from three containers on 29th August.

The tramadol shipments came under different brand names, such as Royal Tapetadol, Carisoprodol 225 mg, and Royal Tramadol Hydrochloride 225 mg.

The following day, 30th August, Babafemi said another set of three containers watchlisted by NDLEA were subjected to joint examination. At the end of the exercise, a total of 3,030 cartons of codeine syrup containing 554,600 bottles of opioids were recovered from them.

This brings the total bottles of codeine seized at Onne, Rivers, and Tincan in Lagos to 1,284,600 bottles worth N8,992,200,000.00 in street value, while the combined seizure of tramadol stood at 29,840,000 pills valued at N8,940,000,000.00.

In the same vein, NDLEA operatives at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Rivers State, on August 27th, arrested a suspect, Eze Emekan Don, while attempting to board a Cronos airline flight to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, with 1,490 pills of tramadol concealed and packaged as cosmetics of different brands inside his luggage. His attempt to compromise the officers to evade arrest was rebuffed.

The NDLEA spokesman said no less than 1,122 kilogrammes of cannabis were seized from a suspect, Mustapha Ibrahim, when he was arrested on 26th August along Orchid Road, Ajah, Lagos, while 816 kg of the same psychoactive substance belonging to a suspect at large was recovered from the same location the same day.

In Niger state, NDLEA operatives arrested a suspect, Friday Gabriel, along Minna-Suleja road while conveying 1,900 capsules of tramadol, 300 bottles of codeine syrup, and 600 packets of exol-5 tablets.

Similarly, operatives in Bauchi state arrested two suspects on Saturday: Garba Muhammed and Usman Yakubu Shehu along the Bauchi-Gombe road while transporting 308 blocks of cannabis weighing 246.4 kg, concealed in a false compartment of a J5 bus marked Edo state URM 38 ZY.

In the same vein, commands and formations of the agency across the country continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitisation activities to schools, worship centres, workplaces, and communities, among others, in the past week.

Responding to the latest seizures and arrests, the Chairman and Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Marwa (Rtd), commended all the officers and men of PHPC, Tincan, and the Special Operations Unit of the Agency that had been working on the targeted containers for their vigilance and professionalism. H

I equally praised the support received from other stakeholders at the ports that enabled the seamless and successful operations in the course of targeting the shipments.

He also applauded operatives in Lagos, Niger, Bauchi, and PHIA, as well as other commands across the country, for their diligence and balance in their drug demand reduction and drug supply reduction efforts.

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