The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a former Vice Chairman of Lagos Island East Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Asekun Kehinde Sakiru.
Asekun was nabbed by NDLEA operatives at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos, with cocaine concealed in pairs of slippers.
Spokesman of the of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, in a statement on Wednesday, May 12, stated that Sakiru is a ''notorious drug baron,'' who has been on the wanted list of the agency since the arrest of some traffickers and drug seizures linked to him.
Babafemi said the long arm of the law caught up with the suspect at about 9.40pm on Friday 7th May, 2021 while trying to board a Virgin Atlantic airline flight to London, United Kingdom at the Lagos airport.
At the point of his arrest, Asekun was caught with a kilogramme of cocaine concealed in five pairs of palm slippers packed inside his suitcase. He has been on the wanted list of the MMIA Command of the Agency in connection to a case involving one Azeez Adeniyi Ibrahim who was arrested with 6.45kg of cocaine in December, 2020.
During preliminary investigation, it was gathered that the London-based suspect was at different times between 2004 and 2014 the vice chairman of Lagos Island East LCDA. He had also contested and lost elections for the House of Representatives in 2007 and Lagos State House of Assembly in 2015.
Although he claims to be an international businessman who deals in automobiles, an investigation is yet to confirm that to be the source of his acquired wealth.
In the course of tracking him, the sum of N131million was seized from his account and another N14 million also blocked in the account of one of his traffickers, Azeez Adeniyi Ibrahim, bringing the total sum so far recovered from him to N145 million.
Chairman of NDLEA, Brig. General Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd) said with the support of all stakeholders, the problem of drug trafficking and abuse in Nigeria will be drastically reduced very soon.
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