Six drug traffickers sentenced to 156 years in prison in Lagos, Ogun

The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos and Ogun State sentenced six drug traffickers to a total of one hundred fifty-six (156) years imprisonment for borderline offenses of drug trafficking, transportation and conspiracy for the purpose of transporting illicit substances filed against them by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA.

Worst hit is a 27-year-old drug trafficker, Ahmed Abdulsabur, who was arrested in 2022 by NDLEA officers and prosecuted under charge number FHC/AB/20C/2022 at the Federal High Court in Abeokuta. , chaired by the Hon. Judge Joyce Obehi Abdulmalik. In passing judgment on the six counts against Ahmed, Judge Abdulmalik found him guilty and sentenced him to 10 years in prison on each count, bringing his total sentences to 60. from prison.

In a similar decision, Judge Abdulmalik also sentenced another dealer, Olumide Elegbede, 32, to 20 years in prison; 10 years for each of the two counts brought against him under charge number: FHC/AB/128C/2I. The judge ruled that the years of imprisonment in both cases would run concurrently.

At the Federal High Court in Lagos, where the quartet of Okechukwu Umeh; Lanre Adebayo; Adigun Adeshina and Emmanuel Omijeh were arrested on three counts number FHC/L/87c/2023, the trial judge, Judge Akintayo Aluko, on Thursday March 16, was found guilty and sentenced each of them to five years on the first count; seven years each on counts two and three. This brings the total number of years for each of them to 19 years in prison and for the four to 76 years in prison.

Although the judge ruled that the sentences should be served simultaneously, he also gave the four convicts the option of paying 20 million naira in lieu of the prison sentences. This is in addition to the granting of the NDLEA’s request for final forfeiture of a white colored Ford bus with registration number: PHC 315 ZT, used to transport 532.8 kilograms of Loud variant of cannabis on day of their arrest, Sunday January 22, 2023 along the Lagos/Ibadan highway. The court also granted the final confiscation of three million naira (N3,000,000)

offered as a bribe by convicts to NDLEA officers.

The drugs concealed in ‘take away’ food packages in 19 large cartons were seized from the white Ford bus heading to Port Harcourt, Rivers State along the Lagos-Ibadan highway at 2.35am on Sunday January 22. The convicts: Okechukwu Umen, 41; Lanré Adebayo Ismaila, 47; Adeshina Adigun Fatai, 50; and Emmanuel Omijeh, 42, were arrested in connection with the seizure and three million naira (N3,000,000) offered as a bribe kept as part of the exhibits for their prosecution.