Two suspected smugglers
have been arrested after they were found transporting parcels of hard drugs
believed to be worth N62.4 million.
The suspects, Itobo Egede
and Munirudeen Ikumapayi, were arrested by Operatives of the Federal Operations
Unit, FOU, Zone A of the Nigeria Customs Service at different Locations -
one at the Sagamu,
Ijebu-Ode Expressway, Ogun State and the other at Gbeaji Customs
check-point, Seme Expressway in Lagos State.
One of the suspects, Egede,
while narrating his ordeal to Vanguard, implicated two soldiers as accomplices
in the crime. He explained that he is a taxi driver from Cross River State who
came to Lagos to visit his sister and was travelling back home. According to
him, he stopped a bus travelling to Calabar and after negotiating the fare to
N4,000 from the N10,000 at which it was placed, he got into the bus which had
only the driver and two soldiers in it.
The bus they were
travelling in was stopped by Customs Officers at a check point in
Ijebu-Ode leading to the discovery of the goods. Egede said he was arrested
together with the driver and put in a patrol van but after a while, he did not
see the driver anymore. He claims that the soldiers asked him to provide money
so they could bribe the Customs Officers. “I was carrying N100,000 my sister
gave me, but the soldiers asked me how much I had on me so they would give the
Customs Officers to release us. I then gave them N50,000 but they refused to
collect the money from the soldiers.”
It has been gathered
through a security source that the soldiers were handed over to the military
authority for in-house disciplinary action.
The second suspect,
Ikumapayi, has also claimed to be innocent, stating that he was a commercial
driver who plied the Osun-Lagos route and the drugs found in his bus belonged
to a woman who paid him to deliver the parcel to Osun State.
“I was loading my bus at
Oshodi when one woman came with a parcel concealed in a wrapper and asked me to
deliver it to someone in Osogbo, Osun State. I charged her N2,000 but she gave
me N1,000 which I collected. She also gave me the phone number of the receiver
and collected my phone number too. But I did not check the parcel before taking
off."
Both suspects will be
charged after the substance suspected to be Canabis has been subjected to
scientific examination, said Lawal Opeloyeru, Principal Staff Officer, PSO, of
NDLEA, Chief Superintendent of Narcotics.
Source: Vanguard
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