Court Jails Brazil Returnee Drug Courier 2 Years
Justice Akintayo Aluko of a Lagos Federal High Court, today, convicted and sentenced a 41 year-old drug courier, Ibeh Chinedu Damian, to two years imprisonment, for smuggling 3.20 kilograms of cocaine into the country.
Ibeh was given the jail-term by the judge, after he pleaded guilty to a count charge of unlawful importation of the said drug, made against him by the men of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). 
In urging the court to award the convict the sentence, the prosecutor, Mr. Augustine Nwagu, told the court that the convict was arrested with the drug, on September 26, on his arrival from Brazil, during the inward clearance of passengers on Qatar airways.
He said the offence commited by the convict, contravened section 11(a) of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act Cap N30 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.
Nwagu, after reviewing the facts of the charge, told the court that the convict in his confessional statement, stated that he had once embarked on such illegal act, in which he was paid N4 million.
But his counsel, Anthony Nnamoko, allocutus, told the court that his client has turned a new leaf since he was arrested on September 26, and promised not to engage in illegal act.
The lawyer also told the court that his client got involved in the act, when he got ‘broke’ and there was no one to assist him to return to the country from Brazil.
He therefore pleaded with the court to consider an option of fine in lieu of custodian sentence.
However, Justice Aluko in his judgment, after hearing all the submissions made by counsel, and citing plethoras of authorites, sentenced the convict to two years imprisonment without option of fine.
The judge also ordered that the convict’s international passport be forfeited by the federal government, and that the drug recovered from him be destroyed by the agency, if there is no appeal against the judgment within the period stipulated by the law.
