Policemen attached to the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of the Lagos State Police Command, on Sunday, arrested a suspected gang of narcotics dealers with 18 sacks of substance alleged to be Indian hemp. Information made available to security operatives from the Office of the Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, indicated that the suspects had been terrorising the Oyingbo-Otto area of the state for a while.
The RRS team immediately swung into action and apprehended four suspects – Quadri Jimoh, 23, Tajudeen Busari, 33, Ukowa Uduma, 34, and Yakubu Mudashiru, 30 – while a man identified as Olumide, aka Aroso, who also deals in various drug substances, bolted.
Upon their arrival at the RRS headquarters in Alausa, two of the suspects, Jimoh and Busari, insisted that they were victims of circumstances as they knew nothing about the drugs recovered by the police.
Jimoh who lives at 15, Atitebi Street, Oyingbo, said that he was on his way to buy medications for his pregnant wife when he was apprehended.
“I am a bus conductor. My wife who is six-month pregnant called me to buy some prescribed medications for her. On my way going to the pharmacy, I saw people running helter-skelter and I also ran with them. But unfortunately for me, I was caught by the policemen,” the suspect explained.
Busari, from Ilorin, Kwara State, said that he was just passing around the area where the sacks of Indian hemp were recovered.
“I was just a passerby when I saw people running for their lives and I also ran too before these policemen intercepted me,” he pleaded.
The other two arrested suspects confessed to the police that they were not the actual dealers of the drugs but they only smoke, identifying Olumide, who is now at large, as the owner of the recovered substance.
“I went there to buy Indian hemp before I found myself inside the police net. As a fashion designer, I came to Lagos about two years ago to eke a living,” Uduma said.
Mudashiru, who said his house was gutted by fire some years ago, confessed that he is a regular visitor to the house where the drugs were found.
“I have nowhere to stay after my house was razed down by fire. Since then I have been sleeping inside the motor park in Oyingbo. Truly, I went there to smoke on the fateful day,” he confessed.
RRS Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Olatunji Disu, advised the general public to always furnish the police with timely and effective information to combat crime.
“With information from members of public, the work of the policemen will be made easy. We cannot do it all alone as we rely much on the hints from the people,” Disu appealed.
The suspects have been transferred to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for further interrogation.
