A 25-year-old lady and five men have been sentenced to a total of 141 years imprisonment for trafficking in Cocaine and Cannabis Sativa by Federal High Courts sitting in Benin, Edo State and Abeokuta, Ogun State respectively.

The convicts are Chioma Okocha and five men, Ndubuisi John, Haruna Aliyu, Saddam Abdullahi, Bashir Usman, and Usman Ibrahim. Chioma Okocha was convicted and sentenced to 15 years by Justice AC Obiozor of the Federal High Court, Benin, for trafficking 200 grammes of crack cocaine following her arrest in the Edo State capital on September 24, 2021 by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and her subsequent arraignment in suit no. FHC/B/136c/2021. The convict pleaded guilty to a one-count charge when her case came up in court on Monday November 15. The judge, however, granted her an option of paying N2 million fine or15 years in jail effective from September 24 when she was arrested, while trying to deliver 200 grammes of crack cocaine to a customer at an eatery in Benin city.

NDLEA’s spokesman, Femi Babafemi, in a statement yesterday, said the five men were also convicted and sentenced to 126 years imprisonment by Justice Ogunremi Omowunmi Oguntoyinbo of a Federal High Court in Abeokuta in suit no. FHC/AB/105c/2021. According to him, the convicts were arrested on September 14, 2021 along Lagos -Ibadan Expressway, while conveying 46 bags of cannabis sativa weighing 552 kilogrammes in a truck and subsequently charged on three- counts of transportation, possession and dealing in the illicit drug. Justice Oguntoyinbo in her judgment delivered on November 9, sentenced the first, second and third accused persons to 30 years imprisonment each, while the driver of the truck got 21 years and the motor boy/driver’s assistant got 15 years. Similarly, Ndubuisi, Haruna and Saddam were sentenced to 10 years on each count charge, while Bashir got seven years on each count charge and Usman 5 years on each count charge. The jail terms are to run concurrently.