The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) reported that a former beauty queen, Oluwadamilola Aderinoye, has surrendered herself to the agency’s Lagos command. Aderinoye, who won the Miss Commonwealth Nigeria Culture title in 2015/2016, had been on the run for eight months after being declared wanted by the agency for drug-related offences.
According to a statement by NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi, Aderinoye was declared wanted after she escaped during a raid on her apartment in Lekki, Lagos on January 24, 2024. The raid led to the discovery of 606 grams of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, along with an electronic weighing scale, large quantities of drug packaging plastics, and a black RAV 4 SUV marked Lagos KSF 872 GQ.
“Wanted ex-beauty queen, Ms. Aderinoye Queen Christmas, also known as Ms. Queen Oluwadamilola Aderinoye, has surrendered to the Lagos Command of the agency after about eight months in hiding,” Babafemi stated.
The former beauty queen claimed to have been hiding in Akure, Ondo State, since her escape. She turned herself in on August 28, 2024. During the same period, NDLEA operatives also seized a significant amount of drugs, including 31,124,600 pills of tramadol and bottles of codeine-based syrup valued at over N17.9 billion. These seizures were made at the Port Harcourt Port Complex in Rivers State and Tincan seaport in Lagos.
In addition, 350,000 bottles of codeine syrup were recovered from two containers at Tincan Port in Lagos on August 29 and 30, 2024, while at Onne Port in Rivers State, operatives seized 29,840,000 pills of tramadol and 380,000 bottles of codeine syrup from three containers.
Babafemi also reported the arrest of Eze Emekan Don at the Port Harcourt International Airport on August 27, while trying to board a flight to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, with 1,490 tramadol pills disguised as cosmetics in his luggage. Similar operations in Lagos, Niger, and Bauchi states led to the seizure of various drugs, including cannabis, tramadol, and exol-5 tablets, and the arrest of multiple suspects involved in drug trafficking.
