A Federal High Court sitting in Benin, Edo state and Abeokuta, ogun state respectively have sentenced a 25-year-old lady identifed as Chioma Okocha and five men to a 141 years’ imprisonment for trafficking in cocaine and cannabis sativa.
The other convicts are John Ndubuisi, Aliyu Haruna, Abdullahi Saddam, Usman Bashir and Usman Ibrahim.
This was contained in a statement issued on Tuesday by Mr Femi Babafemi, Spokesman for the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency ( NDLEA).
Babafemi said, Okocha was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in jail by Justice A. C. Obiozor of the Federal High Court, Benin, for trafficking 200 grams of crack cocaine.
The convict was reportedly arrested in Benin on September 24, 2021, by operatives of the NDLEA.
She was said to have pleaded guilty to the one-count charge when her case came up in court on Monday, November 15.
The judge, however, granted her a fine option of N2m or 15 years’ imprisonment effective from September 24 when she was arrested while trying to deliver the cocaine to a customer at an eatery in Benin City.
The five men were convicted and sentenced to 126 years’ imprisonment by Justice Ogunremi Oguntoyinbo of the Federal High Court in Abeokuta in suit No. FHC/AB/105c/2021 on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway
conveying 46 bags of cannabis sativa weighing 552 kilograms in a truck and subsequently arraigned on three counts of transportation, possession and dealing in the illicit drug.
Delivering her judgment on November 9, Justice Oguntoyinbo sentenced Ndubuisi, Haruna and Saddam to 30 years’ imprisonment each.
While the truck driver, Bashir, bagged 21 years’ imprisonment, the motor boy, Ibrahim, got 15 years jail term.
The jail terms are to run concurrently.