The recent foiling of an attempt by an international drug syndicate operating between Brazil Ethiopia and Nigeria to smuggle 845 wraps of cocaine weighing 18.72 kilograms into Nigeria through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos by the National Drug Law and Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), has been eliciting reactions from key players.
The latest drug consignments which was uncovered in the toilet compartment of an Ethiopian airline aircraft in Lagos by officials of the anti narcotic agency would have fetched the barons a whopping four billion,four hundred and ninety-two million, eight hundred thousand naira but for the intelligence of the NDLEA officials.
According to the spokesperson of the agency, Femi Babafemi “The drug consignments worth Four Billion Four Hundred and Ninety-Two Million Eight Hundred Thousand Naira (N4,492,800,000) in street value were recovered from two lavatories of an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft during the post landing cleaning of the cabin of flight ET900 from Addis Ababa to Lagos on Tuesday 29th October 2024.
“The illicit drug consignments were wrapped in nine polythene bags and hidden in the waste collectors in the two rear lavatories of the aircraft, from where they were recovered after the MMIA Strategic Command of NDLEA was alerted about the strange objects. No fewer than 30 suspects have so far been grilled in connection with the seizure.
“Investigations revealed that the seized drugs were conveyed from Brazil to Ethiopia through ingestion and excreted in Addis Ababa by a set of couriers while some other traffickers picked them up and attempted to smuggle them into Nigeria through the Lagos airport before their attempt was frustrated with the cooperation of the airline’s authorities and other airport stakeholders.”
The discovery of the drugs inside the airline toilet has continued to elicit reactions from key players with many calling for serious attention to be focused on the affected airline.
According to an Aviation security expert and the Chief Executive Officer of Selective Security International Limited, Mr. Ayo Obilana, the issues pertaining to illegal drug in the country’s aviation sector is an exclusive responsibility of the NDLEA and not that of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and its aviation security directorate.
“It is therefore, important to let the government agency in charge act or deal with the issue. In case there is need for assistance from any other agency, NDLEA should accordingly invite such agency(ies) for collaborative support.
“Ethiopian airline and staff of the airline should henceforth be closely monitored through surveillance and intelligence networking. Any offending personnel and their collaborators should be severely punished in accordance with extant law of the country on illegal drug smuggling or trafficking.”
Another aviation security expert and a former military commandant of the Lagos airport, Group Captain John Ojikutu, retired, blamed the federal government for not investigating Ethiopian Airlines before now in view of incessant use of the airline by drug traffickers to perpetrate the heinous crime.
“Ethiopian Airlines has been in this cover up business since the 1980s and nobody or no agency of the government is ready to investigate or interrogate the trend of over thirty years in the airline drug trafficking. Go into the NDLEA records and see which airlines are involved and how many passengers and at which airports. In the early 90s, I had 23 traffickers on one Ethiopian flight at MMIA, Ojikutu declared.
The director at Zenith Travels, Mr Olumide Ohunayo in his reactions commended the NDLEA for thwarting the evil efforts of the drug couriers through their intelligence gathering and their foresight despite the antics of the drug cartels.
“I think there is the need to increase the searchlight on Ethiopian airlines and it should not be only on the employees, not only in Lagos alone but all other entering points into Nigeria including their cargo aircraft. Searchlight should be beamed more. For this one that has been discovered in the toilet showed there are drug couriers within the service providers to Ethiopian airlines and they need to be looked at, those who cleaned the toilet on the day of the flight, those who serve catering on the airline. Obviously for those drugs found in the toilet, somebody must have brought them, somebody must have been arranged to pick them up. I think they need to beam searchlight on the service providers and the personnel that service Ethiopian airlines, that should be considered in order to nip the activities of the drug cartel in the mud.”
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