A 300-level university student, Rhoda Agboje, and her boyfriend, Ifeanyi Nwankwo, who specialise in producing and selling drugged cookies to school children have been arrested by the Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in Abuja.
Spokesman of the agency, Femi Babafemi, confirmed this on Tuesday in Abuja, stating that the suspects produce the cookies with ‘Arizona’, a highly psychoactive variant of cannabis; alcohol and rohypnol among other ingredients.
Femi disclosed that Rhoda was arrested at the NPC Cooperative estate, opposite Gaduwa estate in Abuja on Sunday with four pieces of the drugged cookies after an unsuspecting young girl complained about the cookies she ate. “The young girl after eating the cookies lost her mind and couldn’t sleep, making incoherent utterances due to the effects of the cookies.
“During interrogation, the prime suspect confessed that she makes the cookies with a friend and sells each pack of three pieces at N1, 500.
“Our agents did a follow up operation to her boyfriend’s house where they recovered over 200 pieces of the drugged cookies,” Babafemi said.
The suspect confirmed that she sells the cookies at parties, to school children that are the most vulnerable and supplies some supermarkets and clubs in the FCT.
Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Brig-General Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd), advised parents to be careful of the new strategy to lure children addicted to drugged cookies.
He described the act by the syndicate as not only criminal but equally unconscionable by deliberately luring school children into drugs under the cover of selling to them biscuits or cookies.
“I wish to draw the attention of parents to this new devious strategy and urge them to remain vigilant while monitoring what their wards bring home from school or consume as snacks,” Marwa warned.
In the interim, parents in the FCT said this is a wake up call for them to become more vigilant and intensify their prayers over their children. Some proceeded to form prayer groups while discussing on ways to educate their children on being disciplined and not always craving store bought wares and rejecting gifts offered to them by strangers.