OPERATIVES of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have intercepted 64,000 pump action gun cartridges and a new pump action gun at a store located at Success Line, Marine Modern Market, Onitsha, in Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State.
According to a statement on Friday by the Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA, Mr Femi Babafemi, the discovery, which led to the arrest of an arms dealer, 34-year-old Donatus Onyemachi Igwebudu, followed credible intelligence on drugs and arms deal in the location.
Backed by soldiers, NDLEA operatives stormed the store on Wednesday and moved the arm and ammunition to the agency’s office in Awka.
In a related development, NDLEA operatives on patrol on Okene-Lokoja Expressway in Kogi State intercepted 34 children between the ages of eight and 14 being trafficked from Ijebu Ode, Ogun State, to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
The minors packed in two commercial buses, a Toyota Sienna and a 12-seater Mazda with registration numbers Lagos LND124FV and Oyo BDJ-683YK respectively, were recovered in the early hours of Thursday from the human trafficking syndicate.
The bus drivers confirmed that the kids were handed over to them by a woman in Ijebu Ode to be conveyed to Abuja, adding that on arrival in the FCT, the woman was to call another bus driver who would convey the children to Riyom in Plateau State.
It was further revealed that the children were initially trafficked from Plateau State to Ijebu Ode, where they were distributed to different households as domestic servants. Some of the children were discovered to have served for two years and their rewards sent to the woman’s agent in Jos.
While commending the officers and men of Anambra and Kogi state commands of the agency for their vigilance and preparedness to work in synergy with other security agencies in their areas of responsibility, the chairman of the NDLEA, Brigadier-General Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd), charged them to sustain the tempo.
Marwa directed that the arm and ammunition along with the suspect arrested in Anambra State be transferred to the police while the 34 trafficked children were to be transferred to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) for further investigation.
