Couple Sentenced To 22 Years Imprisonment For Drug Trafficking

A businessman, Ajah Johnson Uchenna and his wife, Rosemary Uchenna, have been sentenced to 22 and a half years imprisonment by Justice Deinde Dipeolu of the Federal High Court 8 in Lagos for dealing in illicit drugs.

The couple, who were sentenced on Monday, were first arrested on Friday, June 13, by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) in Ojo area of the state and transferred to NDLEA along with 277.5kg of skunk, a strain of cannabis.

NDLEA’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, said while they were still being investigated in custody, credible intelligence revealed that the family business was going on in their house. This led to a raid of their home and a packing store, where 231kg of the same substance was recovered by NDLEA operatives on Tuesday, July.

They were subsequently arraigned in charge number FHC/L/632C/2025 at the Federal High Court, Lagos on a four-count charge bordering on conspiracy, dealing and storage of 414.2 kilograms of cannabis sativa.

While delivering his judgment on the case, Justice Dipeolu convicted Mrs Rosemary Uchenna on counts 1, 2, and 3 and sentenced her to 17 years in prison without an option of fine, while her husband Johnson Ajah Uchenna was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment without option of fine on count 1 and six months in jail on count 4 with an option of N1 million fine.

In addition to the jail terms, the trial judge also ordered the sum of ₦3, 407,000.00 only recovered from the couple as proceeds of crime be forfeited to the federal government.

Similarly, a Federal High Court in Kano presided over by Justice Simon Amobeda has convicted and sentenced a 42-year-old Indian lady, Neetu Neetu, to five years imprisonment for importing 72 parcels of heroin factory sealed in wafer wraps and packaged as chocolates, weighing 11 kilograms into Nigeria through the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA) Kano.

The class A drug consignment was recovered from Neetu’s luggage after a thorough search, following processed credible intelligence, during an inward clearance of Qatar Airways flight QR1431 from Bangkok, Thailand, via Vietnam and Doha, at the arrival hall of the Kano airport on Friday, March 14, 2025.

She was subsequently arraigned in charge number FHC/KN/CR/65/2025 before Justice Amobeda, who eventually sentenced her to 10 years on two counts with an option of a N2 million fine.

In like manner, a 42-year-old Angolan businessman, Mbala Dajou Abuba, was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison by Justice Mohammed Yunusa of a Federal High Court in Kano following his arrest and arraignment by NDLEA for ingesting 120 pellets of cocaine weighing 1.829 kilograms.

Abuba, who is from the Zaire province in Angola, was arrested on Tuesday, February 25, 2025, at the Kano airport’s screening point while trying to board Egypt Air flight MS 880 to Istanbul, Turkey, via Cairo.