Okafor Emmanuel Junior, a former football player, was apprehended by agents from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Ikeja, Lagos, when he arrived from Sao Paulo, Brazil, via Addis Abeba on a flight operated by Ethiopian Airlines with 1.40kg of crack cocaine hidden in his bags.
The agency’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, said in a statement on Sunday, October 2, that the 33-year-old native of Arochukwu Local Government in Abia State was apprehended on Monday, September 26, 2022, after anti-narcotic officers found he had hidden the illegal substance in the handles of his bags and had padded the top edges of those bags with the class A drug.
Okafor revealed during the preliminary interview that he was a former footballer with the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH Enugu FC, where he played for four seasons before leaving for Sri Lanka in 2014.
He also stated that after playing for two seasons in Sri Lanka, he moved to Brazil but was unable to advance his football career due to a lack of official documents.