Original Blog Entry: Man, 114, caught with 254 sacks of marijuana

truesee — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:10:45 GMT

Very elderly man caught with huge marijuana haul

Wed Apr 1, 12:33 pm ET

LAGOS (Reuters) Nigeria's anti-narcotics agency confiscated 6.5 tones of marijuana Tuesday from the home of a man who claimed to be 114 years old.

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) said it had found 254 sacks of cannabis at the home of Sulaiman Adebayo in Ogun state, north of the commercial capital Lagos.

The quantity of drugs suggests a large scale involvement ... There is more to the case than Pa Sulaiman, NDLEA chairman Ahmadu Giade said in a statement.

Adebayo, who said he had been a farmer all his life, told police he thought the sacks contained rice.

The agency said he claimed to have attended the inauguration of a famous hall in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun state, in 1895 as a small boy and said he was 114 years old. There was no independent confirmation of his age.

Marijuana is grown illegally on large-scale farms in many parts of Nigeria and is smuggled across its porous borders to neighboring countries.

Lax customs control and corruption have also made Africa's top oil and gas producer a conduit for hard drugs from Asia and Latin America into Western markets.

(Reporting by Tume Ahemba; Editing by Nick Tattersall)

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