from OKORO CHINEDU in Lagos, Nigeria
Nigeria Bureau
LAGOS, (CAJ News) – A FORMER model is among several suspects taken into custody by authorities in the latest crackdown against dealing in illegal drugs in Nigeria.
Oluwadamilola Aderinoye had been on the run for eight months until she handed herself over to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) over the weekend.
Aderinoye had been in hiding since the agency declared her wanted in January after she escaped from her Lekki, Lagos, residence when NDLEA operatives raided it following intelligence she dealt in illicit substances.
During the time she was declared as a wanted person, NDLEA reported that they had recovered from her home some 606 grams of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, an electronic weighing scale and “large quantities” of drugs packing plastics, among other items.
Femi Babafemi, director of Media and Advocacy at NDLEA, announced that the ex-beauty queen had surrendered to the Lagos Command of the agency.
The suspect was Miss Commonwealth Nigeria Culture 2015/2016 and founder of Queen Christmas Foundation.
NDLEA said Aderinoye had been hiding in the Ondo state in the southwest.
Nigeria and pageantry have been synonymous with controversy recently.
Chidimma Adetshina was this past weekend crowned Miss Universe Nigeria. She left South Africa under a cloud recently after protests against her participation in the Miss SA beauty pageant, over claims that she was not South African.
Born in South Africa to a Nigerian father and a mother with a Mozambican ancestry, it emerged the mother allegedly acquired South African citizenship through fraudulent means.
The government in the Southern African country is probing the issue.
– CAJ News