About 100 armed hoodlums attacked an NDLEA-led raid on a cannabis warehouse in Eyinogbe, Owo, at about 2 a.m. on 4 November 2010, shooting two NDLEA officers and three policemen.[1] NDLEA operatives and about 70 policemen, led by the agency’s state operation commander alongside the Owo area commander and the town’s divisional police officer, had gone to force open a warehouse the agency described as jointly owned by a consortium of barons.[1] The attackers arrived in ten buses, opened fire, set stacked bags of hemp alight in front of the warehouse and sprinkled the building with petrol in an attempt to burn the officers inside.[1]
The five wounded officers were taken to an undisclosed hospital in Akure.[1] NDLEA state commander Walter Nicholas said the warehouse held the largest single concentration of Indian hemp the command had found, and that officers returning hours later recovered about 23 tonnes valued at about 23 million naira.[1] He appealed to deputy governor Ali Olanusi to press traditional rulers to identify who was selling land to hemp growers.[1]
