– The Drug War Amongst Nigerians in Thailand
Babatunde Omidina, a.k.a. Baba Suwe, one of Nigeria’s highest paid and best rated comedian, was caught at Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos on Wednesday, allegedly with substance suspected to be cocaine
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Omidina who was recently accused of beating his actress wife, Moladun Kenkelewu to death, ran out of luck as Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency officials rebuffed his false charm and made to explain the wrapped substances detected through x-ray equipment at the point of departure. The actor, who goes by the name Baba Suwe and Adimeru in Nollywood movies, was arrested and detained at the NDLEA offices at the airport until he would excrete the swallowed wraps.
Omidina, 53, who was said to be on trip to Paris, was to travel via Air France in anticipation of performing at the naming outing for the child of an official of the airline this weekend. An Air France official who was also arrested had allegedly refused the services of the comic actor as the Master of Ceremonies for his child’s naming event.
Baba Suwe was allegedly arrested for a similar offense in the past but managed to get off lightly because of purported settlement reached with the agency that booked him. Drug trafficking has lately become rampant amongst Nigerian actors, actresses, musicians and prominent citizens, even royalties.
The new leadership of the NDLEA has zero tolerance for traffickers who are increasingly fond of finding it hard to escape radar detection before they wreck havoc to the image of Nigeria and honest civilians overseas. The NDLEA has seized drugs valued at about $10 million recently. Its Director-General, Mr. Olufemi Ajayi, told sharpedgenews.com that those are least doubted to involve in the devious act of drug trafficking are the most likely to indulge in the crime.
While incidents of Nigerians being caught as drug traffickers continue to decrease in Western countries, the same cannot be said of Nigerians involved in such crimes in places like Thailand.
Nigeria’s ambassador to Thailand, Umar Sulaiman Azores, said that about 200 Nigerians are in jail in Thailand for drug-related offenses. A group which claimed to be the Nigerian Community Association in Thailand had tried through its leader, one Bishop Frank Owai, to manipulate President Goodluck Jonathan’s, through a dubious press conference in Calabar for a higher level intervention, saying that more than 700 Nigerians were in jails for hate crimes. Onwali, the Bishop of no diocese said that officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Thailand who had unsuccessfully tried to use them for 419 operations were the ones responsible for the plight of the felons.
However, Amassador Umar Sulaiman Azores said in an interview that Four Hundred and Sixty-Five Nigerians were transferred back home last August.
Azores discredited the October 2, 2011 press conference addressed by Owile as “blackmail by drug traffickers and barons peddling tissues of lies.”
His words: “I have been in Thailand since 2008 as Nigerian Ambassador. To say the list that story credited to one Bishop Frank Owali is blatant lie and blackmail.
At the moment we have about 290 Nigerians in Thai jails out of which 285 are as a result of drug offences going through the Thai judicial system. We have transferred 465 Nigerian inmates from Thai jails back to Nigeria, where there is no single Thai prisoner.”
Ambassador Sulaiman also explained that the cause of the dispute with Bishop Owali’s group was that the embassy refused to give recognition to a drug baron who was elected as the president of the Nigerian Community.
“What happened is that on 23 August 2011 my Embassy was invaded and vandalized by some disgruntled Nigerians living in Thailand. My staffs including the Ambassador were traumatized and assaulted by the gangsters, who were looking for my Consular Officer, Abayomi Bamgbelu, to lynch on that day but I locked him in my toilet.
“The sin of Abayomi is that he did not give immediate recognition to a Drug Baron, who happens to have been elected as the new President of Nigerian Community Association in Thailand. The campaign of calumny and black mail is to ensure that the criminals who vandalize the Nigerian embassy Bangkok go scot=free even without show of remorse.” Ambassador Sulaiman stated.
The Ambassador also stated that the matter has been reported to the ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja for further action.
To describe some of the icons of Nollywood as uninspiring is an understatement; many of them rub toxins and bleach, which questions their pride in the black race and their self-worth. Most of their productions are extremely loud and violent, even when only verbal commentary is involved. It is difficult to expose children to Nigerian movies. And now this new-found act of illicit drug use and trafficking does not recommend Nollywood actors as role models.