In the town of Akala in Mushin, Lagos State, police officials arrested a suspected drug dealer for dealing in marijuana. Along with 49 other people, the Lagos State Task Force on Environmental and Special Offences Enforcement Unit arrested Sunday Adesoye, also known as Marlboro, on Saturday. Police allegedly seized 48 bags of illegal drugs from the suspects.
Adesoye reportedly said in his statement to police that he was selling N500, 000 worth of marijuana and other illegal narcotics every day in Akala. Olayinka Egbeyemi, chairperson of the task force, said that Mrs. Basirat Jimoh, another suspect from Ibadan in Oyo State, also known as Iya Suzzy, also confessed to supplying the community with marijuana and other illicit substances for well over 17 years.
According to Egbeyemi, “One of the suspected notorious criminals, Sunday Adesoye, also known as Marlboro, confessed that Akala served as a central market for cannabis and illicit drugs to all miscreants and hoodlums in Lagos. He confessed further that he sold an average of N500, 000 worth of Indian hemp and other illicit drugs daily to his customers from Obalende, Oshodi, Pen-Cinema, Apapa, Lagos Island, and Fadeyi, among others.”
Egbeyemi also said that, “Altogether, 44 males and six female suspects were arrested, and they had been charged before Magistrate Lateef Owolabi, of the Lagos State Mobile Court, on three counts of unlawful possession of weeds suspected to be Indian hemp, trading in Indian hemp, and conduct likely to cause breach of the peace.”
The raid, as Egbeyemi explained it, was the police force enforcing operation Eradication of Criminal Hideouts, initiated by Imohimi Edgal, the Lagos State Acting Commissioner of Police. “Forty eight bags of substances suspected to be cannabis and packs of other illicit drugs, such as Novalgin with Codeine cough syrup and Tuxil-C cough mixture, were recovered,” the task force chair claimed.
“This agency and other police units are battle ready to stop criminal activities across the state, as initiated and directed by the Commissioner of Police,” Egbeyemi continued. Spokesperson for the task force, Taofiq Adebayo, stated for the record that the court had granted bail for the suspects, and that they are pleading not guilty to the charges.
