About fifty police officers led by the Ondo State police commissioner, Alhaji Sani Mogaji, invaded a ten-hectare farm of suspected Indian hemp hidden in thick forest at Emure Ile in the Owo council area and destroyed the crop.[1][2] Six workers on the farm were arrested, including two blood brothers, and police said the substance planted there was worth about N2 billion.[1][2]
The arrested men were named as Stephen Akpan, 28, and Ezekiel Akpan, 19, the brothers, alongside Idowu Obi, 25, Raphael John, 21, Abdukarim Raimi, 28, and Lucky Obi, 24.[1][2] None of them came from Ondo State or its neighbours; they hailed from Delta, Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi and Kogi states.[1][2] The brothers said they had taken the work to care for their sick mother, with Ezekiel still a junior secondary school student and Stephen describing himself as a farmer.[1][2]
Trailed for days, then handed to the NDLEA
Mogaji said his men found the farm after trailing the suspects for days on police information, and the farm was handed over to the NDLEA in the state after the raid.[1][2] The NDLEA principal staff officer, Aya Joshua, said the agency would keep working with other security operatives against the plantation barons.[1][2] Police said all six suspects had given confessional statements expected to lead to the arrest of the barons who engaged them.[1][2]
Mogaji said his command, together with the NDLEA, was determined to check the trade, and he appealed to traditional rulers to question strangers buying up large parcels of land posing as businessmen.[1][2] He also called on the government to set up a task force able to penetrate the forests where the barons plant the crop.[1][2]
