By Adesina Soyooye
Not a few people were shocked at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday when a convicted drug trafficker, Emeka Ezenwanne disclosed that he smuggled cocaine into the country after N10,000 in bribes. He said with N10,000 he bypassed airport security.
Ezenwanne was made this revelation when he testfied in the ongoing corruption trial which has suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, at its center.
Ezenwanne is currently serving a two-year sentence at Suleja Correctional Centre, and appeared as the fifth prosecution witness in the trial of Kyari and four others.
Kyari was the head of the disbanded Intelligence Response Team (IRT). The four others undergoing trial with him were his subordinates.
They are facing an eight-count charge involving drug trafficking and the tampering of evidence in the case brought against them by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
Ezenwanne, in a detailed testimony said he flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on January 15, 2022 on.an Ethiopian Airlines flight, and received ten sachets of cocaine from two couriers arriving from Brazil.
“They handed me the drugs at the airport lounge, and one even took my photograph after the exchange.”
According to him, he returned to Nigeria through Enugu International Airport on January 19, where he said he was intercepted in company of his associate, Chibunna Patrick Umeibe. Those who arrested them were plainclothes security operatives who were later identified as IRT officers.
He said: “As soon as I approached my companion outside the terminal, a Sienna vehicle pulled up and men jumped out. I was bundled into the car after shouting, ‘Jesus! Jesus! Is this how it ends?’’
On arrest, the drug trafficker said their bags were seized, searched at nondescript police station, photographed, and subsequently transported to the IRT office in Abuja. It was in Abuja that he said he noticed that the weight of the cocaine found on him has depreciated, meaning that it has been tampered with.
His words: “When we saw our bags again on January 25, the weight was clearly reduced. I used to have 10 sachets, but only eight were left. My associate noticed missing items too” , and more so, he testified, some of the confiscated drugs tested negative for cocaine after being handed over to NDLEA. Another evidence of tampering.
The convict said that on the two occasions he smuggled cocaine into Nigeria, nobody stopped him at the airport. Instead, he revealed that Immigration officials at Enugu simply asked for a bribe money. “They told me to pay for a smooth search. I handed over N10,000 and walked through”, he disclosed.
Howevee, cross-examined by Kyari’s defense counsel, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), Ezenwanne testified that he never met or spoke to Kyari himself during his arrest and detention. He said: “I did not see the first defendant at any point,” and noted that despite offering to surrender the drugs during the arrest, he was still detained.
Kyari and his officers, according to the NDLEA, tampered with over 21kg of cocaine seized from Ezenwanne and Umeibe. The Agency also disclosed that only a fraction—3.8kg—tested positive during official procedures.
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