The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) reports that on New Year’s Day, its agents apprehended 61-year-old Alhaja Aishat Feyisara Ajoke Elediye, a wanted drug kingpin and Lagos socialite, in her mansion in the Okota neighbourhood of Lagos after intercepting a truckload of illegal drugs from her employees that same day.
Alhaja Ajoke, as she is affectionately known in her social circle, is also known in the drug underworld as “Iya Ruka,” according to a statement signed by NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi.
Babafemi claims that her genuine identity was kept a secret for years while she was on the NDLEA’s wanted list for being the head of a narcotics gang that operated out of the Mushin neighbourhood of Lagos.
However, on Wednesday, January 1, 2025, NDLEA agents acting on intelligence seized a white Izuzu vehicle driven by one of her employees, 41-year-old Abideen Adio, that was transporting 44 jumbo sacks containing 1,540 kilogrammes of imported cannabis, blowing the lid off her invincibility.
The agents then broke into her hiding place at 33 Adebayo Oyewole Street, which is off Ago Palace Way in Okota, and took her into custody.
Alhaja Ajoke appears to be a businesswoman who imports shoes and textiles from China, but below she is involved in a huge illegal narcotics trade.
The statement said, in part, that she is also known as the Iyalaje of Blessing Sisters, a powerful organisation of women in Lagos culture.
In a significant operation, NDLEA officers arrested Emeka Emmanuel Mbadiwe, a US-trained Hollywood and Nollywood filmmaker and motivational speaker, at his Lekki Hotel room on Friday, December 27, 2024.
This came after Mbadiwe’s partner, Uzoekwe Ugochukwu James, was arrested earlier that day at a warehouse in Ajao Estate Ikeja.
Mbadiwe had sent James to pick up 33 packages of Loud, a potent cannabis strain weighing 17.30 kilogrammes, that had arrived in the import shed of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA Ikeja, on a Delta Airline flight from the United States on December 24, 2024, hidden in large wooden boxes.
On Sunday, December 29, 2024, NDLEA agents arrested Khadijat Abdulraheem, a 24-year-old recent graduate, and Ayomide Morakinyo, a 20-year-old student at the University of Ilorin, at Tanke-University of Ilorin Road, Oke Odo, Ilorin, on the basis of reliable information that they were manufacturing and selling drug-laced cupcakes to local students. 42 pieces of poisoned cakes were found when their flat was raided.
Officers of the NDLEA’s MMIA Strategic Command have arrested former prisoner Sodade Sunday Eniola for passport racketeering.
Eniola was arrested by NDLEA’s Tincan Command in June 2024 for drug trafficking, prosecuted, and given a four-year prison sentence.
On June 14, 2024, he was found guilty by a Federal High Court in Lagos.
The trial judge offered him a N750,000 fine, which he accepted and was released.
The NDLEA, however, reported that during a series of operations at the Lagos airport’s export shed in December 2024, its agents seized no fewer than fifty-two passports from cargo bound for Canada, Russia, and other nations that were hidden in food items and shoe soles.
Four members of the three syndicates involved in the scam were arrested as a result of additional investigations.
It went on to say, “Sodade Sunday Eniola, Ayinde Saheed Awwal, Salaudeen Afeez Ayode, and Sheriff Adebayo Bamigbade are among the suspects who have been arrested.”
On Monday, December 30, 2024, both the suspects and the exhibits were turned over to the Nigerian Immigration Service’s Zonal Command in Lagos for additional examination and potential legal action.
During a joint inspection of the cargoes with Nigeria Customs and other security agencies on Tuesday, December 31, 2024, NDLEA officials at the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, Onne Rivers state, confiscated at least 316,800 bottles of codeine-based syrup from two containers.
The seizure came after the Agency’s Port Harcourt Port Command evaluated reliable intelligence.When NDLEA agents visited the Mafarki, Dan Dishe neighbourhood of Dala LG in Kano on Tuesday, December 31, 2024, they found 149, 090 tramadol and exol-5 pills from a local dealer named Ismail Muhammad, 45.
“Over the last week, the Agency’s Commands and formations across have continued their War Against Drug Abuse, WADA, and sensitisation efforts to schools, places of worship, workplaces, and communities, among other places, with the same zeal.
These include, among other things, the Muslim faithful at the Birnin Kudu Central Mosque in Jigawa State during their Juma’at prayer and the WADA sensitisation presentation given to traders at Ido-Osi Central Market in Ido Ekiti, Ekiti state.
“The Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), commended the officers and men of MMIA, Lagos, Kano, PHPC, and Kwara Commands of the Agency for the arrests and seizures, and said that their operational successes and those of their compatriots across the country, especially their balanced approach to drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction efforts, are well appreciated.”