By Emmanuel Nduka
Nigeria’s anti-narcotics agency, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has declared the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, wanted over alleged links with drug trafficking.
NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi made the announcement during a press conference in Abuja on Monday.
The agency also released a video evidence allegedly showing Kyari negotiating a drug deal.
The NDLEA thus declared Kyari, who until recently, was the head of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT), a member of an international drug cartel.
“With the intelligence at our disposal, the Agency believes strongly that DCP Kyari is a member of a drug cartel that operates the Brazil-Ethiopia-Nigeria illicit drug pipeline, and he needs to answer questions that crop up in an ongoing drug case in which he is the principal actor. His failure to cooperate forced the hand of the Agency and that is the reason for this press briefing,” NDLEA spokesman told journalists in Abuja.
The agency added that “Kyari initiated a call to one of the NDLEA officers in Abuja at 2:12 pm. When the officer returned the call two minutes later, Kyari informed him he was coming to see him, to discuss an operational matter after the Juma’at service.
“He proposed a drug deal whereby he and his team are to take 15kg of the cocaine and leave 10kg for the prosecution of the suspects arrested with the illicit drug in Enugu.
“In the meantime, the purloined cocaine will be replaced with a dummy worth 15kg. He asked the NDLEA officer to persuade men of the FCT Command, to play along as well.”
Meanwhile, Kyari is also wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US over his ties with Nigerian Instagram celebrity, Ramon Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi.
