Despite the closure of border by the Federal government, a pick-up van which purportedly conveyed saw dust into the Nigerian border in Oke Ogun area of Oyo state has been intercepted by the men of the Oyo/Osun command of the customs service.
On investigation and thorough scrutiny through the eagle eyes of the officers, it was discovered that a N160 million worth of Indian hemp were concealed under the saw dust.
The command controller, Zulkifli Abdullahi on Wednesday told journalists that the intercepted Indian hemp otherwise called ‘marijuana’ was discovered in several packs with the said vehicle at a border community, Elekokan, in Iwajowa local government of the state.
Abdullahi said the consignment was the biggest of such illicit drugs in recent times, nabbed by the men of the command.
Abdullahi noted that unfortunately for men of the command who intercepted it, the two people in the vehicle which comprises the driver and the motor boy, fled on sighting his men and ran into a thick forest.
According to him, he had intelligence report that the imported part of the Indian hemp was transported from Ghana enroute Togo and to Cotonou borders before getting to Nigeria.
He said; “As you can see, we have 101 bags of the India hemp and 1,047 pieces of blocks of compressed and special Indian hemp.
According to what we learnt, three years ago, it was sell for N120,000 in Kaduna and today, it may go for N150,000.
“If you add the value of the bags which is N20,000 each, the Indian hemp is worth N159,000 million, approximately N160,000,000 million.
I know it was God and the efforts of our officers that help us to intercept these volume of Indian hemp because it is only God who knows the damages this could have done to our country and our teeming youths, if they had scaled through to the country.
“It could have caused enormous danger to our children. We are grateful to our officers for achieving this. We are appealing to smugglers to desist because this is too much for God sake.
“It might be probably heading to the north because our people take much of this things in the north but wherever it is heading to, we are appealing to our people to desist from this. It is very annoying. We are not going to relent in fighting smuggling,” Abdullahi warned.
The officer in charge of operation for National Drug Law Enforcement Agency in the State, Mr. Segun George commended the men of the Nigeria customs service for their commitment to rid the country of smuggling activities.
He said the NDLEA would team up to ensure destruction of the Indian hemp when they get clearance from the headquarters in Abuja.
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