Archive March 3, 2025

A lawmaker from Agege Constituency I, Mudashiru Obasa, has been re-elected as the Speaker of the 40-member Assembly in the wake of the leadership tussle that has plagued the Lagos State House of Assembly for the past seven weeks.

Mojisola Meranda, the house’s speaker, resigned on Monday, and Obasa was elected.

Noheem Adams, a former Majority Leader of the House who represents Eti-Osa Constituency 1, was the nominee for his re-election.

Seven weeks after his removal, Obasa took the oath of office as the new Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly.

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In 2007, he was the first member to win a seat in the House. Since then, he has been in the chamber. Before being fired in January 2025, he first started speaking in June 2015.

Chess or Game of Thrones?

More than two-thirds of the 40-member assembly removed Obasa as speaker of Lagos on January 13, 2025, sparking a leadership crisis in the Assembly. He was fired because of alleged misconduct and other offenses.

Meranda, the then-deputy of Obasa, was immediately elected as the new speaker, making her the first woman to lead the state’s South-West state legislature.

Obasa vehemently opposed his removal on January 25, 2025, and pleaded with him to continue speaking until the right thing was done. He criticized the assembly complex’ militarisation during the impeachment process. He also claimed that while he was away from Nigeria, he was removed as speaker.

Read more about the Rivers Assembly Crisis at APC’s Oki. Lagos Speakership Tussle-APC.

However, 36 lawmakers who are close to Meranda argued that Meranda’s removal was final and that she would continue to be House speaker.

When security personnel and some legislative workers argued over the former’s presence in the Assembly Complex on February 17, 2025, fighting broke out in the hallowed chambers. After that, 36 of the lawmakers approved a heartfelt motion and adjourned the session indefinitely.

As he entered the hallowed chambers on February 27, 2025, Obasa showed up at the Assembly Complex and was escorted by a retinue of uniformed security personnel with armed, stern-looking uniforms. Since being removed as Lagos speaker on January 13, 2025, Obasa made his first appearance in the Assembly on Thursday.

A suspected drug baron, baron Ogbonnaya Kevin Jeff, was detained at his hideout in Lagos, according to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

The 59-year-old was detained after 17 years of hiding in the shadows from the authorities, according to a statement from NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi.

He claimed that Brig Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), the NDLEA’s chairman and chief executive officer, made this known at a press conference in Abuja on Monday.

Following an Interpol red notice against him and information from the National Intelligence Service of South Korea, the NDLEA boss explained how members of its Special Operations Unit had been following Ogbonnaya.

READ MORE: &nbsp: Angolan businessman excretes 120 wraps of cocaine at Kano Airport – NDLEA

The arrest of a drug lord who is wanted as the head of an international drug trafficking organization is, according to Marwa, “the major development that warranted this special briefing.” Therefore, I’m pleased to report this significant development in our efforts to eradicate drug-trafficking networks.

Our main targets are drug barons and other significant figures who organize drug trafficking rings, as we have stated four years ago when we first introduced the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) reform.

“On Wednesday, February 12th, 2025, we successfully apprehended the 59-year-old drug baron Ogbonnaya Kevin Jeff.” The suspect was detained at No. 1 in his hideout. Off LASU Road, off Ibukunoluwa Taiwo Close, in Lagos, Prior to his arrest, NDLEA had been looking into him.

We now have complete information about his activities and unmistakable proof that he is a notorious drug lord who arranged for young Nigerians to smuggle illegal substances into the Republic of Korea (South Korea) through his recruitment.

According to our records, he was a key figure among the many Nigerians detained abroad for drug-related offences. Additionally, we have established that he imported electronics and other products to launder the proceeds of drug trade. Numerous international passports from different countries, many of which contained Korean visas, were recovered following his arrest and a search of his residence. Additionally, we found some illegal goods in his house’s back room.

The NDLEA boss acknowledged the suspect’s leadership role in the drug trade by stating that “Ogbonnaya Kevin Jeff is an international trafficker operating both from Nigeria and abroad. His dossier indicates that he was deported to Nigeria in 2008 after serving a one-year prison sentence in the Republic of Korea in 2007. Despite this, he continued to engage in illicit trade and continued to be actively involved in Far Eastern drug trafficking.

He is currently wanted in the Republic of Korea for a number of drug trafficking-related offenses he and his accomplices co-operated. His arrest and extradition to the country was ordered by an INTERPOL Red Notice for crimes committed between 2023 and 2024.

It has been established that Ogbonnaya Kevin Jeff, the ringleader of a drug trafficking group responsible for the People’s Republic of Korea, is the result of a number of interdictions. He has been running operations remotely by giving instructions to domestic suppliers and drug lords operating in Cameroon, Ghana, Burkinabe, Liberia, and other East and Southern African nations.

He added details about what investigations into Ogbonnaya’s illegal trade activities had discovered.

The suspect sent 6, 051.06 grams of skunk, concealed in dried chillies and jujube, to a Korean, Kim Dong Wook at a designated address in Jinju City, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea, on October 5, 2023, at a location in Burkinabe. The package arrived via Air France at 07:20 am on October 19 at Incheon Airport.

According to his investigation, he directed his drug couriers, Santa Elizabeth Pieterse and Carl Yohan Stephan Brisman, to smuggle a total of five kilograms of meth into South Korea via overseas flights between December 2023 and April 2024 while residing in Nigeria. He has recently sent illicit drugs to South Korea for street value worth more than N1.4 billion.

Asa, an unknown domestic carrier, is delivering for him drug consignments to a warehouse run by Okori Emmanuel, a Nigerian, who is his supply manager in South Korea. In January and June 2024, the Seoul Central District Court has currently issued two arrest warrants for Ogbonnaya. He is accused of importing narcotics in violation of Article 3-7 of the South Korean Narcotics Control Act, an offence that can result in a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Marwa reaffirmed NDLEA’s commitment to making sure that Nigeria doesn’t act as a hub for international drug trafficking operations.