Over twenty-six parcels of Cannabis Sativa (Indian Hemp) have on Saturday, October 5, 2019, been recovered inside a luxury bus at Upper Iweka, in Onitsha, Anambra state.
The substances were reportedly recovered by a task force set up by Association of Luxury Bus Owners of Nigeria, ALBON, from the bus while loading passengers at one of the motor parks in the commercial city.
Each of the parcels was said to be wrapped with polythene bags, concealed inside Ecolac and Ghana-must-go bags and hid at a corner of the luxury bus by a suspected drug trafficker.
Displaying the parcels and bags to NAN shortly before handing them over to officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Onitsha Zonal Command, Chairman of ALBON Task Force, Uchenna Joe Maduakor, said all the passengers on board denied knowledge of the items.
Maduakor who is also the proprietor of Uchenna Motors, said his team have been compelled to search all bags belonging to passengers boarding luxury buses inside motor parks following rampant cases of fraudulent acts by drug peddlers.
He said, “It’s amazing how these peddlers conceal hard drugs inside luxury buses and inform NDLEA officials to go after the drivers on their way to their destination.
“After flagging down the same buses, they go straight to where the drugs are innocently kept by the driver or conductor, unmask them and arrest both the driver and his conductor.”
According to Maduakor, the innocent drivers would later be detained and their vehicles impounded for months before extorting not less than N1 million from them.
“The NDLEA officials had ignorantly detained luxury buses belonging to various transport companies in recent past and extorted so much money from them before releasing the vehicles,” he added.
Speaking separately, some of the transport company owners, Godwin Ubaka Okeke of the GUO Motors; Sebastine Udemba of Chiemezie Motors, regretted that their businesses were going down as a result of the ugly trend.
Confirming the recovery of the exhibits on telephone, the public relations officer of NDLEA in the state, Charles Odigie said the agency was investigating the alleged conspiracy between their officials and drug peddlers.
He, however, said the agency had enjoyed a cordial relationship with Association of Luxury Bus Owners of Nigeria, ALBON, in the fight against drug trafficking.
