Barely three years after he was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to two years imprisonment for dealing in illicit drugs, an 80-year-old grandpa Jeremiah Isaiah Nkanta has again been nabbed by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for returning to the criminal trade.
A statement from Femi Babafemi, spokesperson of NDLEA, says Nkanta who is notorious for illicit drug business, was first arrested by NDLEA on 14th December 2022, prosecuted and sentenced to two years in jail by a Federal High Court in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state. Not ready to let go the old habit, Nkanta returned to the illicit drug trade and following credible intelligence, NDLEA operatives on Saturday 10th January 2025 tracked the Octogenarian ex-convict to his Mmanta – Abak village, Abak local government area of Akwa Ibom state, where he was arrested with 5.7 kilograms of skunk, a strain of cannabis in his residence.
Babafemi said in another successful interdiction operation in Akwa Ibom state, NDLEA operatives on patrol along Oron-Ibaka road in Oron LGA on Friday 9th January intercepted a 37-year-old businessman Ani Onyebuchi Romans while travelling with full body mannequins for his clothing business in Cameroun. A search of the mannequins revealed that they were stuffed with pills of tramadol weighing 5.3 kilograms.
He mentioned that the suspect claims he resides in Cameroun and was reportedly returning to his base after the Christmas and New Year holidays when he was apprehended. It was revealed that he bought the drugs in Onitsha, Anambra state and was trafficking them to Cameroun to sell, using two mannequins to conceal the opioids.