Tony Edike
2 December 2008
Enugu — THE National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) yesterday expressed concern over the growing rate of drug trafficking among Nigerian youths, saying however that the South East has the highest number of drug traffickers in the country.
Chairman/Chief executive of NDLEA, Ahmadu Giade, who disclosed this at a news briefing in Enugu as part of activities to flag off the Zonal Campaign on the prevention of illicit drug crop cultivation, trafficking and abuse in Nigeria, said that of the 165 suspected drug traffickers arrested between January and October this year at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, 95 of them were from South East.
He stated that the arrest represented 57.6 percent of the total arrest so far made, adding that last weekend one Ugochukwu Anyikwa who hail from Ideato in Imo State was arrested at Lagos airport for ingesting narcotic drugs.
According to Giade, within the same period, of the 88 suspected drug traffickers successfully intercepted at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, 56 of them were from South East representing 63.6 percent, while available statistics showed that 98 percent of those arrested were found to have ingested deadly drugs like cocaine and heroin.
He said, "This is regrettable. As we speak, 15 of our nationals, all of them from this South East are on the death row over drug offences in far away Singapore.
Unfortunately, they engaged in this suicidal and ignoble act for peanuts. Sadly enough, they realized that their action not only endanger their precious lives but bring our country's image into disrepute".
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