Lagos socialite, one other arrested for drug trafficking

A female graduate and a secondary school drop-out have been arrested by the officers of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, with illicit drugs. .

The suspects arrested are Harriet Bolatito Solabi, a 34-year old Higher National Diploma holder, and Victor Chukwu, a school drop-out.

Solabi was nabbed on board an Ethiopian Airways aircraft that was set to depart the country with 3.9kg of ephedrine and 1.6kg of methamphetamine. .

Solabi was recalled after she had checked in two big bags she claimed to be filled with personal effects and had boarded the flight No.910 to Addis Ababa while awaiting take-off. The drugs were concealed in the false bottom of the bags.

The suspicion made the anti-narcotics agency to hold down the aircraft from take-off until all the personal effects of Solabi were evacuated for investigation purposes.

After her arrest, she feigned ignorance of the content of the bags, which she said she was requested by her contact in Pretoria, South Africa, to collect from an unknown person in Lagos. .

She also said she had arrived Abuja from Lagos on a local flight for an onward flight to Johannesburg. The NDLEA found that she had travelled to South Africa numerous times without hitches until she was arrested in Abuja. .

Solabi, a single mother of a 10-year old daughter, attended Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta. During the investigation, she told the NDLEA that she trades in fabrics, which she goes to bring from South Africa to bring to Nigeria and distribute to her customers.

The second suspect, Chukwu, 44, was also arrested with 59 wraps of heroin weighing 865 grammes, which he had ingested. He told the NDLEA that a black woman met him in a restaurant in Malawi and talked him into bringing the illicit substance to Nigeria.

He claimed he was to call her upon arrival in Nigeria for her to direct the recipient to him. He admitted knowing that he was handed an illicit substance but agreed to be a mule because of poverty.