By Bisola Adeyemo
National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on Sunday arrested the Chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Babatunde Babade, alongside two other persons with 52.5 kilogrammes of cocaine.
According to a statement issued by the spokesman of NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, Babade was arrested along with two others persons, Ilesanmi Shola, 35, and Babajide Johnson, 45, for alleged involvement in illicit drugs, Thisday reports.
According to Babafemi, the transport union leader was caught with 52.5 kilogrammes of skunk in Akure, the Ondo state capital, following intelligence that he was conveying bags of the banned drug in his Mazda car with registration number: Ekiti JER 194 AE from Akure to Ekiti State.
He said Babade, popularly called BB, “was taken into custody along with others soon after his arrest on July 18, for interrogation, and in his statement, he (Babade) admitted he owned the vehicle used for conveying the drug, and further confessed that the car was earlier intercepted by some security agents who detained the two other suspects, his car and eight bags containing cannabis sativa while his brother who drove the vehicle fled.”
The agency’s spokesman, however, claimed that following his intervention, the security agents released the suspects and his car to him after taking two of the eight bags containing the drug and N60, 000 from him, before he later ran into NDLEA officers while on his way back to Ekiti State.