Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have arrested two drug kingpins at the Port Harcourt International Airport and the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, who excreted a total of 125 wraps of heroin.
According to a statement made available to thecolumn.ng by the agency’s spokesman, Femi Babafemi, on Sunday, one of the kingpins uses dual identities to facilitate his cross-border movements.
Babafemi said the suspect holds a Nigerian passport under his original name, Onyekwonike Elochuckwu Sylvanus, 30, and a Sierra Leonean passport under a different name, Kargbo Mohamed Foday.
“He was intercepted by the NDLEA officers with his Sierra Leonean passport on Sunday, February 2, 2025, at the Port Harcourt airport, Rivers State, during the inward clearance of passengers on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha via Abuja to Port Harcourt.
“He was subsequently taken for a body scan, which confirmed he had ingested illicit drugs. He was then placed under excretion observation, during which he expelled a total of 62 wraps of heroin in five excretions, weighing 1.348 kilograms.
“Investigations revealed that Onyekwonike Elochukwu Sylvanus (alias Kargbo Mohamed Foday) alternates between his two identities for different drug trafficking missions between Thailand, Pakistan, Iran, and West African countries.”
Babafemi stated that the suspect confessed to having gone into the illicit drug trade full-time in 2017 after his business collapsed.
“He claimed to have gone full-time into the illicit drug trade in 2017 when his clothing and shoe business failed,” the statement read.
Babafemi said the second kingpin, James Chinoso, 48, was arrested by the NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport on Saturday, February 1, upon his arrival from Madagascar via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on an Ethiopian Airlines flight.
He stated that after a body scan confirmed the presence of illicit drugs in his system, he was placed under excretion observation, during which he egested 63 wraps of heroin with a total weight of 909 grams.
“Chinoso had left Lagos for Madagascar on January 26, 2025, and returned via Addis Ababa after spending a week. He claimed to have ventured into the criminal trade after his phone accessories business in Liberia collapsed,” Babafemi added.
In addition, two parcels containing 2.82 kilograms of Loud —a synthetic strain of cannabis imported from the United States and destined for Lagos— were intercepted by the NDLEA operatives from the Directorate of Operations and General Investigation at a courier firm in Lagos on Thursday, February 6.
In another operation the same day but at a different logistics company in Lagos, Babafemi said anti-narcotics officers intercepted 80 ampoules of pentazocine injection, weighing 225 grams, concealed in cartons and heading to Canada.
In Kano State, Babafemi reported that the NDLEA operatives arrested Usaini Salisu and Yahaya Mu’azu, both 23 years old, on Monday, February 3, at Gadar Tamburawa along Zaria Road, where 15,396 pills of tramadol were recovered from a gas cylinder used to conceal the consignment.
“In another operation the same day, operatives nabbed a female suspect, Chioma Okeke, 35, with 27 blocks of skunk —a strain of cannabis— weighing 15 kilograms at the Sabon Gari area of Kano.
“A consignment of 12,800 pills of tramadol 250mg, destined for Shuwarin in Jigawa State, was intercepted by the NDLEA officers on patrol along the Kabba-Obajana Highway in Kogi State on Saturday, February 8. A suspect, Salisu Basiru, 33, was arrested.
“Similarly, no fewer than 65 parcels of Colorado —a strong synthetic strain of cannabis— with a total weight of 1.6 kilograms, also heading to Jigawa State, were recovered from another suspect, Rufai Hassan, 32, at the same checkpoint on the same day,” Babafemi said.
The Israeli military announced on Wednesday it had struck two naval cruise missile production facilities operating under Iran’s ministry of defence in Tehran.
“In recent days, the Israeli air force acting on IDF intelligence struck two key naval cruise missile production sites in Tehran,” the military said.
It said the facilities were used to “develop and manufacture long-range naval cruise missiles, which are capable of rapidly destroying targets at sea and on land”.
The strikes “represent another step in deepening the damage done to the regime’s military production infrastructure”, the military added.
Last week, the military announced its fighter jets had struck several Iranian naval ships in the Caspian Sea, including vessels equipped with anti-submarine missiles.
AFP
The number of migrants who died on the “Eastern Route” from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula doubled to a record high of 922 last year, the UN migration agency said Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of migrants from Ethiopia, Somalia and neighbouring countries take the route across the Red Sea each year, mostly from Djibouti to Yemen, in search of work as labourers or domestic workers in wealthy Gulf countries.
“2025 was the deadliest year ever recorded on the Eastern migration route… with 922 people dead or missing — double the number from the previous year,” Tanja Pacifico, head of mission for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Djibouti, told AFP.
The majority of victims were from Ethiopia, the second most-populous country in Africa with more than 130 million people. It is plagued by multiple internal conflicts and deep poverty.
“IOM remains fully committed to working alongside the government of Djibouti to promote safe and dignified migration pathways, in order to prevent further tragedies,” said Pacifico.
Many migrants who cross the Red Sea find themselves stuck in Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, which has been embroiled in a civil war for nearly a decade, and some even choose to return.
Rapid economic growth in Ethiopia — estimated to reach around 10 percent in 2026 — could encourage less migration, IOM says, but that is mitigated by high inflation, also around 10 percent in February.
AFP
Denmark’s political parties began the thorny process of forming a government Wednesday, with the centrist Moderates as kingmaker after the prime minister’s Social Democrats scraped through a general election without a majority.
Danes were braced for a weeks-long process as Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen seeks to consolidate power in the deeply splintered parliament after Tuesday’s snap vote.
A left-wing bloc made up of five parties, including Frederiksen’s Social Democrats, won 84 seats; the right-wing and far-right claimed 77; and the Moderates won 14 in the election.
The Social Democrats posted their worst election score since 1903—though they remained Denmark’s largest single party, with 38 seats in the 179-seat parliament.
Frederiksen formally tendered her coalition government’s resignation to King Frederik on Wednesday, telling a televised party leader debate she wanted to try to form a centre-left government.
“The most realistic scenario” would be a coalition with the five parties on the left and the centre-right Moderates, she said.
But it is not certain the Moderates, led by Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, would agree to that.
“I don’t believe that Denmark needs policies aligned with” the leftist Red-Green Alliance, Lokke said.
King Frederik was to meet party leaders individually later Wednesday to determine who should be asked to try to form the next government.
“My expectation is that Mette Frederiksen will become prime minister,” University of Copenhagen political science professor Rune Stubager told reporters.
“But I don’t know with the backing of which parties, like the left wing or the right wing,” he said.
He noted that Lokke, a two-time former prime minister, would likely vie for the position of prime minister, even though he has adamantly denied any interest in the job.
“Danes want me and not another prime minister. I still have the backing to be able to continue on behalf of the Danish people,” Frederiksen insisted during the debate.
Frederiksen has for the past four years headed an unprecedented left-right coalition made up of her Social Democrats, the Moderates and the Liberals.
The Liberals have refused to continue in a Social Democrat-led government.
Danes are now prepared for long negotiations. After the 2022 election, the talks lasted six weeks.
“It’s a long process, which means the government won’t be formed and it will be quite difficult to pass laws during this period,” lamented Jesper Dyrfjeld Christensen, a 54-year-old engineer.
“It’s really too hard to say who will be part of the coalition,” admitted Stubager.
With 12 parties in parliament, the political landscape is jagged — though Denmark is accustomed to minority governments.
“To some extent, this is the way Danish politics works. You have a minority government in the centre which forms a majority with the left on some issues and with the right on others,” he explained.
The negotiations are expected to focus on economic and pension issues, pollution and immigration, he said.
The traditional far-right party, the Danish People’s Party, which has heavily influenced policy since the late 1990s but slumped in the 2022 election, more than tripled its result to 9.1 per cent of votes.
The three anti-immigration groups together garnered 17 per cent, a stable figure for Denmark’s populist right over the past two decades.
“If negotiations take place in the left-wing bloc with the moderates, then there will be more focus on green issues than on immigration,” Stubager said.
“But if, instead, the Moderates negotiate with the parties on the right, then the central issue will be immigration.”
Four seats in Denmark’s parliament are held by its two autonomous territories — two for Greenland and two for the Faroe Islands.
While the Faroese renewed the mandates of the two outgoing lawmakers, with one for each bloc, Greenland overwhelmingly backed the left-wing party and Naleraq, which advocates rapid independence from Denmark.
AFP
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