The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA) has denied reports making the rounds that the operatives of the agency, destroyed all the cocaine seized in a Lagos warehouse on Tuesday.
In a statement released on Tuesday 27th September 2022, by the Director of Media nd Advocacy of the agency, Mr Femi Babafemi stated that such reports are not true.
Mr Femi Babafemi stated that the claims and insinuations that the NDLEA has destroyed all drug exhibits recovered from the Ikorodu cocaine warehouse are false and misleading.
“Our statement on the public destruction clearly states that the order to destroy the seizure was issued by a Federal High Court Lagos.
The statement further states that a portion of the drug seizure is secured for the purpose of prosecuting the suspects in court. As part of transparency and in line with legal procedures, the suspects were taken to the venue of public destruction to witness quantity destroyed.
And sign certificate of destruction. In fact, 27.5kg of the cocaine has been secured for the purpose of prosecution. Those making unfounded claims obviously didn’t read our earlier statement or doing that out of mischief. Please disregard their falsehood,” he said.
The seized cocaine
On 18 September, officials of the agency busted a major warehouse at Solebo Estate in the Ikorodu area of the state where over N194,775,000,000 billion worth of crack in street value were seized.
The decision to destroy the bulk of the seizure follows a court order obtained by the agency from a high court in Lagos, the agency’s boss, Buba Marwa, said.
Mr Marwa was represented by Sunday Mbona, the agency’s director, prosecution and legal service.
Out of the 1.8-ton seizure, 1,828 blocks of cocaine were set ablaze while the remnants were secured for the purpose of prosecution of the suspects.
The five suspects were brought to the scene as witnesses and made to sign the certificate of destruction.
Mr Buba said that usually “public destruction” of seized illicit drugs is conducted at the end of court prosecution, however, this “routine exercise” is a “special case.”
“In the meantime, the Agency is proceeding with the prosecution of those arrested in connection with this consignment,” Mr Marwa said.
“On this, the public can rest assured that NDLEA shall pursue the trial to a logical conclusion. Since January 25, 2021, when we commenced our offensive action against drug traffickers, the Agency has secured record convictions.
“Presently, 2,904 drug offenders are serving various jail terms, while other cases are ongoing in court, which we are confident will end in positive results too.”
He said the destruction is a “message to drug cartels that their investments in the illicit drug trade will go up in smoke as you are about to witness while they also risk losing their freedom because the present NDLEA is committed to arresting, prosecuting and ensuring the conviction of those involved in illicit drugs.
Field testing of the illicit drugs before the burning in Badagry, Lagos.
“That is not all, we now also go after their assets acquired with the proceeds of the criminal trade. In the past 20 months, we have arrested and jailed drug offenders who have forfeited 249 luxury cars and 600 bank accounts blocked.