It
was a moment of drama at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos when
a traveler allegedly caught a staff member of a flight service company called
Pathfinder attempting to plant illicit drugs in his luggage.
A viral video shows when the man slapped the Pathfinder staff member and asked
him to explain the content of the package while the official knelt and apologized
for his crime.
It was gathered that the man who caught the flight service official raised an
alarm and informed a popular blog, Sab radio, of what he discovered the
official was doing with his bags.
The viral video shows other airport workers interrogating the flight services
official.
When slapped by the man, the flight service tried to explain how someone paid
him to find a way to send the drugs to someone outside Nigeria.
Speaking in English and Pidgin English, Sabi Radio quoted the traveler as saying,
“Either it is their usual operation to set people up but no, them jam their
match today. As I begin razz the whole airport, they know say person de smh.
“That’s how my life I would have gone just like that, una for see my picture
everywhere for NDLEA say I smuggle drug for international airport.
“Innocent people are jailed daily through this their methods but they jam their
match today, NDLEA personnel were not acting shocked or surprised. Y’all need
to be careful at these airports.”
Reacting to the video, an X user, @Gidi_Traffic said, “According to our
sources, in cases like these, there’s a standby corrupt NDLEA (National Drug
Law Enforcement Agency) operative on the receiving end waiting to arrest the
innocent traveler on a low-key.
“In some instances, the receiver tracks the luggage and takes the merchandise,
either by stealing the entire luggage or in some extreme cases, kidnapping,
killing the passenger and making it seem like a robbery!
“If the passenger is not lucky and is stopped by security, well then,
passengers are unfortunately criminalized, paraded on National TV and legally
sentenced for crimes they didn’t commit!
“The Airport CCTV footage could be having selective amnesia and may not help
your case.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has said that the
man who was apprehended in the viral video for attempting to plant drugs in a traveler’s
bag is not their worker.
Reacting to the incident, FAAN in a statement issued by its Director of Public
Affairs & Consumer Protection, Mrs. Obiageli Orah, confirmed that the
suspect is an employee of an aviation services company operating within the
airport premises.
Orah added that the officer, who tried to ferry a parcel through the passenger
that was going to Accra, Ghana had been arrested and handed over to security
operatives for interrogation.
Also, the spokesperson for the NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, confirmed to Sahara
Reporters that the suspect in the video is not a staff member of FAAN but an
official of a flight service company he identified as Pathfinder.
Babafemi said, “Not that he planted something in the person’s luggage. What
happened is that what they normally do is to approach passengers travelling to
help them deliver consignments to some other persons where they are going to
and I think that was what happened in this case.
“But without letting the person know, I think like what we have been trying to
educate people about on not accepting parcels and packages from people they
don’t know, the passenger was vigilant enough to insist on knowing what was
inside the parcel before he accepted it.
“Both the consignment and the suspect are already with the NDLEA. We have
tested the two substances and formal investigation is still going on but one of
the substances tested positive to tramadol and the other one is a supplement.
We have arrested a lot of people like that.”
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