Justice Dehinde Dipeolu of the Federal High Court in Lagos on Wednesday convicted and sentenced a 41-year-old Canadian woman, Adrienne Munju, to 11 years imprisonment for allegedly importing 35.20 kilogrammes of Cannabis Sativa, otherwise known as Canadian Loud, into Nigeria.
Justice Dipeolu jailed Muju after she pleaded guilty to the two-count charge brought against her by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA.
The NDLEA had alleged in the charge that the foreigner on or about October 3, 2024, during the inward clearance of in-bound passengers on KLM Flight at the ‘D’ Arrival Hall of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, without lawful authority imported the illicit drug into the country.
The prosecutor, Abu Ibrahim, had told the judge that the offence is contrary to Section 20(1}(a) and punishable under Section 20(2) {a) of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act (NDLEA) Cap N30, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.
Based on the convict’s guilty plea, the court directed Ibrahim to review the facts of the case by calling his witnesses and tendered relevant exhibits.
After reviewing the facts, the prosecutor urged the court to convict the defendant based on the evidence presented, the exhibits tendered, and the defendant’s guilty plea.
But in his allocutus, the defence lawyer, Chief Benson Ndakara, pleaded with the court to have mercy on the convict.
Ndakara urged the judge to consider that his client pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, did not waste the court’s time and that she is now very remorseful.
He also stated that the convict had vowed never to engage in criminality again and to be more careful if given a second chance.
Speaking on the aggravating factor leading to the crime, the lawyer claimed that the convict was deceived into committing the offence.
Ndakara also pleaded with the court to impose an option of fine on the convict instead of a custodian sentence, adding that the convict has no relatives or acquittances in Nigeria and has been abandoned by everyone.
After listening to the lawyers, Justice Dipeolu sentenced Munju to six years on the first count and five years on the second count, with the option of a fine of N50 million for each count. Both sentences will run concurrently.
The convict was arrested by operatives of the NDLEA on October 3, 2024, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, for importing a large consignment of a potent strain of synthetic cannabis called a ‘Canadian Loud’.
The anti-narcotic agency had claimed that during a joint examination of her three bags, Munju, who was in Nigeria for the first time, was found with 74 parcels of the illicit substance weighing 35.20 kilograms, stuffed in two of her three bags.
In her extra-judicial statement, the convict claimed she was recruited to traffic the consignment through an online platform for 10,000 Canadian dollars upon successful delivery in Lagos. She said she took the offer because she needed the money to pay for her ongoing master’s degree programme in Canada,”
