By; RAYMOND TEDUNJAYE, Lagos.
A move by a businessman to participate in the Lesser Hajj in Saudi Arabia has been truncated following her arrest over alleged ingestion of substance suspected to be cocaine.
Identified as Afusat Olayinka, 46, the suspect said to be on her way to Saudi Arabia, according to report, excreted no fewer than 80 pellets of cocaine instantly.
Our correspondent reliably gathered that she was arrested by the anti-narcotic officials at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja.
As gathered, the 46-year-old suspect who lives in Ibafo, Ogun state hails from Ilorin, in Ilorin East Local Government Area of Kwara State.
Giving details on her arrest, the NDLEA Director, Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, said that the suspect was nabbed last week Wednesday at the boarding screening area of the airport during an outward clearance of Qatar Airways flight 1418.
He explained that after her arrest, Olayinka was subsequently taken into custody where she excreted 80 pellets of the illicit drug between Wednesday and Saturday of November 27.
While confessing during interrogation, the suspect claimed that she saved N2.5million over a period of one year to buy the drugs in bits from six different people at Akala, Mushin area of Lagos.
“The suspect further said she was trading in clothes but had to borrow N1million from three persons to make up the money used to buy the drugs, adding that she spent another N1million to renew her passport, visa and buy return flight tickets.
“She said she was encouraged to traffic the drugs by a woman she met during her last Umrah trip to Saudi Arabia in 2019. She added that she needed to raise N7million for In Vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment due to pressure from people because shes been married for 28 years without a child due to fertility challenges,” Babafemi said in a statement on Monday.
In a related development, Babafemi said that another trafficker, Inusa Abdulrazaki, was arrested with 101 wraps of Heroin weighing 1.3 kilograms on Friday November 19 at Gate C -Departure hall of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos on his way to Italy via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines.
He said that the drugs were concealed inside cassava flour popularly called gari, adding that the NDLEA operatives at the airport during a routine cargo search at NAHCO export shed also intercepted an abandoned consignment of khat 17.90kg the following day.
