NDLEA officers seized about 80 tonnes of cannabis from warehouses in Ibadan and arrested eight suspects in 2008.[1][2][3][4]
Officers of the Oyo State command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) raided two clandestine warehouses in a residential area of Ibadan in an operation that ran from the morning of 29 May to the afternoon of 30 May 2008, seizing 80.53 metric tons of cannabis.[1][2] The agency’s director-general later called it the single largest seizure ever made by the Oyo State command.[2] The drugs had been loaded into a bullion van, a brewery-painted truck and a saloon car for supply to a residential part of the city.[1][2]
Eight suspects were arrested, including Victor Chukwuka, who managed the warehouses, while the suspected kingpin, Okpor Raphael, was still at large.[1][2] The warehouses stood at Adegboyega Elufidiya Avenue off Airport Road in Alakia and at Gbagi on Old Ife Road, and officers had kept both places under surveillance after a tip from the National Security and Civil Defence Corps.[2] The BBC, citing the NDLEA’s Oyo commander Ekaete Egwunwoke, put the local street value at $1.2 million; the Nigerian press reported about N160 million.[1][2]
Officers weighed the haul at 80.53 metric tonnes, valued at about 160 million naira; the BBC rounded the seizure to 80 tonnes and put the local street value at $1.2 million.[3][4]
Officers also impounded a bullion van, a truck painted in a brewing company’s colours and a Peugeot 504 saloon car used to disguise the trafficking.[3][4]
The Oyo commander called it the largest seizure since the state command was created in 2003, and the BBC described it as one of the agency’s largest hauls.[3][4]