The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency NDLEA, at the Lagos Airport has saved a 55 year old suspected drug trafficker from death after a successful surgical operation to extract a wrap of methamphetamine from his system.
The suspect, Kouassi Jean Paul aka Eze Ikechukwu who ingested 80 wraps of methamphetamine was arrested during the outward clearance of passengers on the 10th of June 2019, on an Ethiopian Airline flight to Jakarta Indonesia, execreted 79 wraps but one was trapped in his stomach.
The NDLEA Commander MMIA, Garba Ahmadu in a chat with newsmen in Lagos, said after excreting 79 wraps, the scan still shown that a wrap was left in his stomach.
According to him, from the day of arrest and after excreting 79 wraps, scans were carried out on him to ascertain a left over wrap was still in his system.
Ahmadu said, “surgical Operation was carried out on the suspect by a team of Top Medical professionals at LASUTH on June 27,2091 and the remaining one wrap trapped in his system was extracted “.
” On July 15,2019, the suspect was discharged from LASUTH”, he added.
On June 18, 2019, CT scan was carried out on the suspect at LASUTH, the suspect was examined by a team of top medical specialist at LASUTH led by Prof. Ibrahim, the Chief Consultant Surgery and Dr. Akanbi, a Senior Resident Doctor, Surgery at LASUTH”.
Investigation revealed that over a million naira was spent on scans and the surgery
The NDLEA Commander, said from January 1st to 31st August, the airport arrested 64 suspects with a total seizures of 260.202kg.
“Number of males 55, females 9, abandoned seizures 2 and 52 seizures/cases.
“The total weight of Cocaine seized is 20.360 kg, Heroin 15.040kg, cannabis sativa 112.242kg, methamphetamine 84.920kg and ephedrine 28.140kg”.
The operated suspect Eze Ikechukwu, who was brought in to be interview by newsmen said, he was sorry for his action, adding that he did not know he was embarking on a dangerous journey.
Ikechukwu said, “my business was not doing well and when they told me to carry this thing(drugs) and drop it when I get to Indonesia I agreed. I wanted to go there and look for an industry to work”.
“I didn’t know the implication of carrying this thing in my stomach, I thank God am alive”.
