Police in Delta State say they have rescued a woman who was abducted by armed men in Sapele and arrested eight suspects in a separate operation in Abraka.

The Delta State Police Command said the woman was attacked at about 19:45 on 2 September 2026 while trying to drive into her residence along Eko Amukpe Road, Sapele.

According to the police, the attackers fired several shots into the air before taking her into a nearby bush.

Officers from the Sapele Division were mobilised after the distress report, while spent ammunition believed to be from an AK-47 was recovered at the scene, the Command said.

Police patrol and surveillance teams, supported by local vigilantes, searched the surrounding bushes through the night and into the morning of 3 September.

The Command said the sustained operation put pressure on the kidnappers, who abandoned the woman and fled.

She was later found unharmed and reunited with her family, police said.

“The woman was subsequently located and rescued unharmed and has since been reunited with her family.” — Delta State Police Command

Eight suspects arrested in Abraka

In a separate operation, police said eight people were arrested in Abraka following an investigation into an attempted murder reported on 3 September.

The Command’s Violent Crime Response Unit (VCRU), acting on what police described as credible intelligence, raided areas it identified as criminal “black spots” in the town.

The suspects were identified by the police as Evans Adamda, Mamatime Micheal, Wale Morakinya, Anabono, Godspower, Theophilus Philip, Robinson Oghenewiro and Inoni Ejiroghene.

Police said three locally made pistols, Tramadol and other suspected illicit drugs were recovered during the operation.

The suspects remain in police custody while investigators work to determine their alleged involvement in the attempted murder and other criminal activities in the area.

The arrests are allegations at this stage, and the suspects would be entitled to due process.

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Police promise further action

The Commissioner of Police in Delta State, CP Samuel E. Erale, commended the officers and local vigilantes involved in the operations.

He said the Command would continue to use intelligence-led operations against kidnappers, cult groups and other criminal suspects across the state.

The commissioner also urged residents to provide the police with timely and credible information about suspected criminal activity.

Why it matters

Kidnapping and violent crime remain major security concerns for communities across Nigeria, with attacks often disrupting businesses, movement and the everyday lives of residents.

The Sapele rescue also highlights the importance of rapid reporting and coordinated searches when people are abducted.

However, police operations and arrests do not by themselves establish guilt. Investigators must establish the evidence against the eight suspects before any conclusions can be reached.

What’s next?

The Delta State Police Command said its investigation into the eight suspects is continuing and that efforts are also under way to identify and arrest the people who fled after abandoning the kidnapped woman.

Residents have been urged to continue providing information that could assist investigations.

Two people have been arrested in Oyo State after police recovered eight parcels of weeds suspected to be “Canadian Loud” allegedly concealed inside a car tyre.

The Oyo State Police Command said the arrests followed intelligence received on 2 September about suspected drug dealing at a vulcaniser’s shop.

Police said a vulcanising machine allegedly used to conceal the suspected drugs was also recovered.

How the arrests were made

According to the command, Commissioner of Police Abimbola Ayodeji Olugbenga directed officers from the Anti-Narcotics Section to investigate the information.

Operatives subsequently moved to the identified vulcaniser’s shop, where two suspects were arrested.

The police said the eight parcels were found hidden inside a car tyre with the assistance of the vulcaniser.

The command did not disclose the names or ages of the suspects.

What police say the suspects told investigators

The police said the suspects confessed to their respective involvement during interrogation.

They are currently assisting investigators as the command works to establish the full circumstances surrounding the alleged drug operation.

Police said the suspects would be charged in court after the investigation is completed.

Authorities are also attempting to identify and arrest other people allegedly linked to the operation.

“The suspects are currently assisting the Police with the ongoing investigation.”

Why the drug case matters

The Oyo Police Command said tackling drug trafficking forms part of its wider strategy to reduce crime and insecurity in the state.

The command linked the circulation of illicit drugs to wider social and security concerns, saying drug abuse can contribute to violence, cultism, robbery, kidnapping and other forms of organised crime.

However, these links should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, and an arrest or alleged drug offence does not by itself establish that a suspect has committed any other crime.

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Police appeal for information

The command has urged residents to provide timely and credible information that could help investigators disrupt drug trafficking networks and other criminal activities.

For emergencies, residents can contact the Oyo State Call Response Centre on 615.

The Oyo State Police Command also listed its control-room numbers as 08081768614 and 07055495413.

What happens next?

The investigation remains ongoing.

The police say the suspects will be taken to court once investigators conclude their inquiries, while efforts continue to locate other alleged members of the suspected syndicate.

As the case progresses, details from investigators or the courts could provide further information about the alleged drug network and the source of the substances.

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) says it has seized more than 3.9 million opioid tablets and 47,200 Captagon pills in a series of operations at Lagos airport and elsewhere in Nigeria.

The agency puts the combined street value of the seizures at more than N6.2bn.

The operations also led to the arrest of a suspected cross-border drug trafficker and the recovery of cocaine, heroin and cannabis in Rivers and Ondo states, according to the NDLEA.

The latest seizures highlight two different but connected challenges for Nigeria: international trafficking of high-risk synthetic drugs and the continued movement of pharmaceutical opioids into the country.

Captagon hidden inside Ghanaian soap

NDLEA officials said they arrested 49-year-old Akinbile Kazeem Aikins at Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, on 22 August after he arrived from Accra, Ghana, on an African World Airlines flight.

Officers searched his carton of locally produced bathing soap, commonly known as “Ghana Soap”.

They found 47,200 Captagon pills concealed inside the blocks of soap.

The agency estimates the consignment’s street value at more than N1.5bn.

Aikins allegedly told investigators that he was expected to deliver the drugs in northern Nigeria. That claim has not been independently verified and would need to be tested through further investigation and any subsequent court proceedings.

Captagon is an amphetamine-type stimulant. The name is widely associated with illicit fenethylline tablets, although much of the illicit Captagon market today consists of counterfeit tablets containing amphetamine and other stimulants.

The drug has gained notoriety because criminal and armed groups in the Middle East have been linked to its production and trafficking. But describing every Captagon shipment as directly funding jihadist groups would require evidence about the specific supply chain involved.

Nigeria first recorded a major Captagon seizure at Apapa Port in Lagos in 2021.

At the time, the NDLEA said it had intercepted 451,807 tablets, weighing about 74kg and valued by the agency at N6bn. The drugs were concealed inside marble-polishing machines.

The agency reported another Captagon interception in Kwara in April 2026, showing that the substance has not disappeared from trafficking routes into Nigeria.

Nearly four million opioid tablets abandoned at Lagos airport

The larger seizure by volume involved 3,900,030 tablets of Tramaking 225mg and Tapentadol 250mg.

The NDLEA said the consignments weighed a combined 2,787.40kg and had an estimated street value of more than N4.6bn.

Three consignments contained 900,000 Tramaking tablets weighing 815.40kg. The agency said they arrived on RwandAir flights from Bangladesh.

A fourth consignment contained 3,000,030 Tapentadol tablets weighing 1,972kg and arrived on Qatar Airways from Amsterdam.

Nobody came forward to claim the shipments.

NDLEA officers, Customs officials and other stakeholders formally examined and retrieved the consignments on 28 August after keeping them under surveillance.

The abandoned shipments raise questions beyond the immediate seizures.

Authorities will need to establish who imported the drugs, who financed them, their intended recipients and how the consignments passed through the international supply chain.

Those questions matter because seizures remove drugs from circulation, but they do not necessarily dismantle the networks responsible for bringing them into Nigeria.

US returnee arrested over imported cannabis

The NDLEA also reported the arrest of 31-year-old Sowunmi David Oludotun at Ikate, Lekki, Lagos, on 19 August.

The agency said Oludotun had arrived to collect 3.35kg of “Loud”, a potent form of cannabis, imported from the United Kingdom.

As with the other arrests, the allegations remain subject to investigation and the legal process.

Cocaine and heroin found inside safe in Rivers

In Port Harcourt, Rivers State, NDLEA officers raided the Abuja Down/Up area, which the agency described as a notorious drug location.

They recovered a fireproof iron safe and later opened it with a welding machine.

Inside, officers found 237g of Colorado cannabis, 316g of cocaine and 10g of heroin, according to the agency.

The discovery illustrates another part of Nigeria’s drug market: local distribution networks operating alongside international trafficking routes.

More than a tonne of cannabis seized in Ondo

NDLEA officers also reported two major cannabis seizures in Ondo State.

Three suspects — Oyedele Daniel, 42; Taye Saliu, 36; and Kehinde Saliu, 36 — were arrested on 28 August along the Ipele-Idoani road.

The agency said they were travelling in a truck marked KRE 120 XB carrying 728kg of cannabis, locally known as skunk.

Two other suspects, Uche Joseph, 35, and Godwin Umeh, 21, were arrested in Aponmu forest on 26 August.

Officers recovered another 341kg of cannabis in that operation.

The two seizures total 1,069kg.

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Why the opioid seizures matter

The large quantity of opioids is significant because Nigeria has faced a persistent problem with non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs.

A UN Office on Drugs and Crime survey estimated that 4.6 million people in Nigeria used opioids in the year before the 2018 survey. Overall, it estimated that 14.4% of people aged 15 to 64 had used a drug other than alcohol or tobacco during the previous year.

The figures are old and should not be treated as a measure of current drug use in 2026. But they demonstrate why opioid trafficking has remained a major public-health and law-enforcement concern.

The NDLEA has continued to report large opioid seizures.

In April 2026, for example, the agency said the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt granted an interim forfeiture order covering 17 containers containing 19.6 million opioid pills and more than 2.49 million bottles of codeine syrup. The agency valued those consignments at more than N33.6bn.

That case suggests that the latest airport seizure is part of a much larger trafficking problem rather than an isolated incident.

Enforcement alone cannot solve the problem

The NDLEA’s current strategy combines drug seizures and arrests with prevention and treatment programmes.

Its War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) campaign was launched in 2021 and has expanded into schools, workplaces, religious institutions and communities.

The agency has previously acknowledged that enforcement alone is not enough and has developed treatment and rehabilitation programmes alongside its anti-trafficking operations.

That distinction is important.

Removing thousands or millions of tablets from circulation can reduce supply, but long-term progress also depends on preventing new users, treating people with drug-use disorders and disrupting the finances of trafficking organisations.

The government has also increasingly targeted the assets and proceeds of suspected drug barons, with the NDLEA saying its offensive against trafficking organisations includes prosecutions and asset forfeiture.

What happens next?

The immediate test will be whether the latest arrests lead investigators to the wider networks behind the shipments.

For the Captagon seizure, investigators will need to establish the origin of the tablets, their intended destination and whether the arrested suspect was acting alone or for a larger trafficking organisation.

The abandoned opioid consignments present a similar challenge. Identifying the importers and intended recipients could provide more useful intelligence than simply destroying or forfeiting the drugs.

The NDLEA has urged its officers to maintain pressure on traffickers who increasingly conceal drugs in ordinary household goods.

For the public, however, the wider issue is not only how many drugs are seized. It is whether enforcement agencies can turn individual interceptions into successful prosecutions, dismantle trafficking networks and reduce the demand that keeps the market profitable.

The latest operation therefore provides evidence of active enforcement, but its longer-term success will depend on what happens after the seizures: the investigations, prosecutions, financial tracing, prevention and treatment that follow.