Ex-footballer Emmanuel Okafor arrested with cocaine at Lagos airport

Emmanuel Okafor, a former football player, was taken into custody by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Ikeja with 1.40kg of crack cocaine hidden in his bags.

When Okafor, 33, was detained on September 26, he had just arrived from Sao Paulo, Brazil after travelling on an Ethiopian Airlines flight.

Anti-narcotic officers found him hiding the illegal substance in the handles of his bags and padding the top edges of the same with the class A drug, according to NDLEA in a statement on Sunday.

Okafor is a native of the Abia State’s Arochukwu Local Government.

Okafor revealed this information during a preliminary interview. He played football for the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu FC for four seasons before leaving for Sri Lanka in 2014.

He further stated that he moved to Brazil from Sri Lanka after playing for two seasons but could not advance his football career in Brazil due to lack of official documents.

Also, an attempt by a 32-year-old woman Pamela Odin to traffic 2.150kg tablets of rohypnol through the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja to Istanbul, Turkey was thwarted by NDLEA operatives.

The mother of one was arrested on Friday September 23 while attempting to board a Turkish airline flight with the drug concealed inside the pepper and packed among foodstuff.

According to the NDLEA, the indigene of Afiesere village, Ughelli North Local Government, Delta State said she operates a restaurant in Istanbul, Turkey but came to Nigeria to see her relatives and buy food items for her restaurant business.