Court orders NDLEA to produce airport staff roster linked to Abba Kyari’s cocaine case
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The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to produce the list of its personnel on duty at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, when two convicted cocaine traffickers later linked to senior police officer Abba Kyari slipped through security checks in 2022.
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Judge Emeka Nwite issued a subpoena on NDLEA chairman Buba Marwa to produce the airport roster, at the request of Mr Kyari, former head of the now disbanded Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT) who faces cocaine charges involving the two traffickers.
Mr Kyari’s lawyer, Julius Mba, brought the subpoena to the attention of the court on Monday. He said the judge the signed the subpoena on 2 October.
Mr Kyari, a suspended deputy commissioner of police, is standing trial alongside four IRT members indicted by the NDLEA for dealing in cocaine. The co-defendants are Sunday J. Ubua, an assistant commissioner of police; Bawa James, an assistant superintendent of police; Simon Agirgba, an inspector, and John Nuhu, also an inspector.
Alongside the four police officers, Mr Kyari faces charges of illicit dealing in cocaine and tampering with 21.35kg of cocaine seized from the two two traffickers by removing 17.55kg of it and “substituting same with some other substance.”
In one count which features only Mr Kyari as the sole defendant, the NDLEA accused him of attempting to obstruct the NDLEA and its authorised officers by offering $61,400 to a senior anti-narcotic operative as inducement to prevent the testing of the 17.55kg of cocaine.
The defendants have denied the charges and started their defence last year, after the prosecution finished calling its witnesses and tendering exhibits to prove the charges.
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Mr Kyari is seeking to strengthen his defence with the list of NDLEA personnel on duty when Chibunna Umeibe and Emeka Ezenwanne imported 21.35kg of cocaine into Nigeria through the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, Enugu State, on 19 January 2022.
The top officer hopes to use the roster to reinforce his plank of defence that NDLEA officers, who cleared Messrs Umeibe and Ezenwanne during airport checks before his IRT members arrested them, were rather the ones complicit in the cocaine trafficking and not him or his team mates.
He said in a court filing in 2022 that “corrupt” NDLEA officials framed him up after he demanded a reward for a whistleblower who aided the IRT in the arrest of a suspect.
Defence seek adjournment
At Monday’s proceedings, Mr Kyari’s lawyer, Julius Mba, said the defence received the signed subpoena Monday.
The lawyer, who appeared for Mr Kyari and the fourth defendant, Mr Agirgba, explained that the subpoena requires the NDLEA to produce certified true copies of the list of agency personnel who were on duty at Akanu Ibiam International Airport on 19 January 2022 for inspection and use by the court and in the defence of the first and the fourth defendants.
Although the defence was scheduled to continue its case on Monday, Mr Mba requested an adjournment due to the ill health of its second witness, El-John Nwonke, a police inspector subpoenaed to testify in the case.
Mr Mba said a letter dated 2 October was earlier sent through the deputy chief registrar, to seek an adjournment on the grounds that Mr Nwonke would not be available for Monday’s proceedings as a result of ill health.
NDLEA’s prosecution lawyer, Joseph Sunday, opposed both the application for adjournment and the subpoena, which he said had yet to be served on the agency. He also said he only saw the letter seeking adjournment just on Monday.
“We don’t conduct trials by ambush. We are not aware of any subpoena, my lord,” he said.
The prosecutor recalled how previous proceedings stalled due to Mr Nwonke’s absence from court, with a lawyer from Mr Kyari’s defence team, named A.A. Akas, informing the court at the time that the witness was on official duty outside the country.
According to Mr Sunday, the judge adjourned the proceedings until Monday with a warning that Mr Nwonke’s evidence could be foreclosed should he fail to appear.
He expressed surprise at the defence coming up on Monday with a letter seeking adjournment on the grounds of ill health of the witness. He also faulted the letter on the grounds that it did not disclose the nature of the witness’ illness or the hospital where he was receiving treatment.
Also faulting Mr Nowke’s request to be away for two weeks, Mr Sunday, said “The DW 2 (second defence witness) has turned himself into a medical doctor and is taking the position of God to determine that the sickness will be for exactly two weeks.”
Arguing that the application for adjournment was in bad taste and would undermine the administration of criminal justice, Mr Sunday urged the court to foreclose Mr Nwonke’s evidence and direct the defence to call its next witness.
Mr Mba pushed back Mr Sunday’s arguments. He said the information available to Mr Akas as of the time of the previous proceedings was that Mr Nwonke was away on official assignment.
He added that the witness wrote to the court after returning to inform it that he was indisposed.
On the subpoena, Mr Mba maintained that although the defence had applied for it several days earlier, he only received it on Monday after the judge signed it on 2 October.
Mr Mba added that the letter did not originate from him and that he took exception to the suggestion that he had acted in breach of the court’s order.
Ruling, Judge Nwite adjourned the proceedings at the instance of the defence.
The judge, who conceded to the adjournment reluctantly, said the witness’ letter was not convincing enough, but only bent over backwards to postpone proceedings in the interest of justice. He fixed 7 October (Wednesday) for the continuation of Mr Nwonke’s testimony and cross examination.
“Failure of the witness to appear on the said date means that his testimony will be foreclosed,” the judge ruled.
The judge also directed lawyers representing the first to fifth defendants to submit the names of the witnesses they intend to call before the next hearing.
Kyari’s defence
Mr Kyari has called two witnesses so far, Mr Nwonke being the second.
On 28 January, El-John Nwonke, a police inspector, testified as defence witness on how officers of the NDLEA allegedly aided the convicts – Mr Umeibe and Mr Ezenwanne – to beat security checks at Enugu International Airport on 19 January 2022, on arrival from Ethiopia with the substance suspected to be cocaine.
Mr Nwoke, the second defence witness, said the now defunct IRT, an elite police unit tasked with tackling serious crimes involving risky operations led by Mr Kyari, arrested the cocaine traffickers shortly after NDLEA officers cleared them at the airport.
He said he was serving with the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) of the Nigerian Police Force, Abuja, when the two suspects were arrested by the IRT officers and brought in for investigation.
He said he was part of the team that conducted the interview session for the suspects on 20 January 2022 when their statements were taken and the session recorded.
The witness said the recorded video was transferred into a digital video disc (DVD).
Mr Nwonke said the two traffickers, who were initially charged alongside Mr Kyari and the four police officers but were later convicted and jailed two years upon their pleading guilty in 2022, told the court that the duo confessed that the police officers arrested them with the substance, allegedly cocaine, at the airport after NDLEA officers on duty had cleared them.
The defence witness said the convicted drug traffickers told his team how the NDLEA officers at the point of entry used sign language to help them beat security checks on arrival, before the police eventually arrested them.
On 28 February, the court admitted the video recording brought by Mr Nwonke as Exhibit D-3. The recording captures convicted Mr Umeibe and Mr Ezenwanne making confessional statements.
The video was later played in open court on 16 March, with the two men describing how they allegedly bypassed security checks at the airport.
In the 27-minute-long video clip, Messrs Umeibe and Ezenwanne narrated how officers of the NDLEA allegedly aided them to bypass security checks at the Enugu International Airport before their arrest by the IRT.
Prosecution’s case
On 7 March 2022, the NDLEA arraigned Mr Kyari and four IRT members alongside Chibunna Umeibe and Emeka Ezenwanne, the two suspected drug traffickers who were arrested at Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu for smuggling in cocaine.
However, Messrs Umeibe and Ezenwanne, the 6th and 7th defendants, pleaded guilty and were convicted and each sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.
The NDLEA alleged that Mr Kyari-led team tampered with and took away part of the cocaine recovered from Messrs Umeibe and Ezenwanne after arresting them at the airport.
The agency charged Mr Kyari and the four suspended IRT members with dealing in 21.35kg of cocaine between 19 and 25 January 2022, thereby committing an offence contrary to and punishable under section 11(c) of the NDLEA Act.
In one charge, the agency alleged that Mr Kyari and the four IRT operatives tampered with 21.35kg of cocaine by removing 17.55kg and “substituting the same with some other substance,” an offence contrary to section 14(b) of the NDLEA Act.
The prosecutors also accused Mr Kyari, in a count featuring him as the sole defendant, of attempting to obstruct NDLEA by offering $61,400 to a senior anti-narcotics operative to prevent the testing of the 17.55kg of cocaine.
In July 2022, the court admitted in evidence $61,400 cash Mr Kyari allegedly offered to an NDLEA operative as bribes.
The court admitted the cash evidence alongside 24 packs of cocaine, which the prosecution tendered through its third witness, Peter Joshua, an operative of the anti-narcotics agency.
Mr Joshua told the court that the foreign currency was given to him on 25 January 2022, after he weighed and carried out preliminary tests on wraps of cocaine that were confiscated from Messrs Umeibe and Ezenwane.
READ ALSO: Convicted drug traffickers speak on their arrest in video clip played during Abba Kyaris cocaine trial
Messrs Umeibe and Ezenwanne were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment each after they pleaded guilty.
But Mr Kyari and four other co-defendants in the case, denied any involvement in the drug crime, despite being caught in a video where Mr Kyari allegedly attempted to bribe NDLEA officials with the aim of compromising investigation.
In October 2022, NDLEA’s fourth prosecution witness, Mohammed Ajia, a commander at the agency, said forensic examinations revealed that only 80 per cent or four-fifth of the substance tested cocaine. The witness said the remaining 20 per cent or one-fifth of it was another substance.
In April 2025, the court ruled that Mr Kyari and his co-defendant had a case to answer and ordered them to enter defence. The judge held that “assuming without conceding that the defendants were charged with less amount of cocaine that is lesser than 17.55 kg or more than that, it does not take away the fact that there is prima facie evidence that the 1st defendant dealt or tampered with cocaine.”
The trial had stalled after the defence played in March the video clip capturing the convicted drug traffickers’ confession.
This was due to the initial shortlisting of Judge Nwite for elevation to the Court of Appeal. But the judge did not make the final list.
The trial resumed on 29 September, about eight months after Mr Nwoke first took the witness stand.
Mr Kyari and his co-defendants are attending trial from prison, where the court remanded them after denying them bail on several occasions.
Earlier in March, Mr Kyari, and two of his brothers were acquitted in a separate non-declaration of assets case.
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