Two Europe-based Nigerian 'businessmen' have been arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja. Aliocus Godian Odife and Sam Blackborn were intercepted on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, during the outward clearance of Air France flight AF 832 from Abuja to Paris.
The duo had attempted to travel to Europe with their bellies loaded with cocaine. A total of 200 wraps of the Class A drug weighing 3.460 kilogrammes were excreted by both men. Odife, who claims to live in France where he works in a factory, had arrived in Nigeria for a short holiday on October 21 and was arrested on his return flight.
NDLEA operatives subjected Odife to a body scan, which confirmed the presence of foreign objects in his stomach. Under interview, he admitted to having ingested 110 pellets of cocaine. He was placed under observation during which he excreted all 110 wraps, which tested positive for cocaine with a total weight of 1.901 kilogrammes.
Similarly, Sam Blackborn was also nabbed by NDLEA officers at the departure hall of the Abuja airport. His body scan returned positive for ingestion, while he confessed to having swallowed 90 pellets of cocaine. Under observation, he excreted all 90 wraps, which tested positive for the class A drug after each excretion and weighed a total of 1.559 kilogrammes.
In a separate operation, NDLEA operatives in Lagos intercepted a white Volkswagen LT 28 bus along Kudirat Abiola Way, Ikeja, where 537 kilogrammes of skunk, a strong strain of cannabis, were recovered. Another team of officers intercepted a brown J5 bus along the Gbagada–Oshodi expressway, with 439 kilogrammes of the same substance seized.
NDLEA operatives also conducted a follow-up operation at Idere Road, Igboora, in Oyo State, where two suspects, Oguntona Nasiru, 46, and Soji Balogun, 47, were arrested while loading 554 kilogrammes of skunk into a Volvo truck for onward movement into town. The operation targeted a notorious drug dealer known as ‘Omo Oba’, who escaped arrest on October 25.
Other operations were carried out in Kano, where NDLEA operatives raided a location in Tsamiya area of Gezawa, recovering 247,500 tablets of diazepam weighing 57.7 kilogrammes and 100,000 tablets of Exol-5 weighing 38.7 kilogrammes. Several other arrests were made and substances seized across various states in Nigeria.
Key points
- Two Europe-bound travellers were arrested with 200 cocaine wraps at Abuja airport.
- NDLEA operatives carried out multiple operations across Nigeria, seizing large quantities of drugs.
- The arrested suspects and seized substances were handed over to the relevant authorities for further investigation and prosecution.
