“No One Would Suspect A Small Girl”: Police arrest woman moving ‘Colorado’ illicit drug through niece

ARINZE NWAFOR

The Lagos State Police arrested a woman, Taye Abass, for allegedly moving an illicit drug, known as Colorado, through her niece (name withheld) to avoid police interception.

Abbas, a local trader, told the police on Tuesday that she planted drugs on her niece to carry from their house to evade the authorities who would not suspect her of the crime.

“No one would suspect a small girl,” Abbas confessed, during her suspect parade at the Lagos police command headquarters, Ikeja.

Abbas, who resides in the Oko Oba area of Lagos, said she started selling Colorado after feeding both herself and her niece became hard.

The suspect had brought her niece to live with her in Lagos from Ilorin, Kwara state.

Abbas narrated how a person from the place she usually sells her drinks introduced her to trafficking the illicit drug and also informed her that the police arrests people who sell it.

“Where I usually take my drinks for sale, somebody then introduced me to Colorado that I should be selling it. He told me the police always arrested people selling it,” she said.

Abbas said she began to plant the drug in her niece’s underwear, as she (Abbas) was about to take drinks out for sale and instruct her to place it in the shop where she (Abbas) would retrieve it later in the day.

The Lagos police intercepted the drugs on the child after a local man spotted her wandering and took her to the police station.

During the police’s attempt to provide the child with a bath at the station, they discovered the drugs.

The police extended the investigation to the suspect’s home and brought her to the Pen Cinema Division.

The suspect’s niece told the police that it was her “sister’s mum that put it on (her).”

“She started putting it on me when I came to her place, [and] tells me she puts it on my body because the police cannot search me,” the child added.

The child told the police she sold the drug, but do not know those who came to buy it.

The Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Benjamin Hundeyin referred to the arrest of the suspect as a collaborative effort of the public and the police.

He said “A good neighbour brought her to the station after he saw her roaming the streets.”

Hundeyin said that the child complained of being maltreated at home when she arrived at the station.

“She said she ran away when she was sent on an errand,” the Lagos PPRO said.

Hundeyin said the suspect did not deny the crime but admitted to using the child as a drug courier from her home to her shops.

“The girl will be handed over to her family and the suspect will be prosecuted accordingly,” Hundeyin added.