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Beji Black-Duke had a thriving clothes business but she wanted more. She was not ready to wait or bid time. She wanted quick wealth. Now, she is helping the anti-narcotics agency unravel how a kilogramme of a banned substance found its way into her panties.
When Grace Beji Black-Duke left secondary school in 1983, her parents knew she would not seek any higher education.
It was quite obvious that she was not cut out for the academia. Everyone that knew her well would testify that Black-Duke was a born businesswoman.
Anything that she laid her hands to sell often flourishes. So, after her secondary education at Ka-labari Girls’ High School, her parents set up a business outfit for her in the oil-rich Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Black-Duke, no doubt, did well in her trading profes-sion. Some years after she left school, Black-Duke met her husband with whom she had three kids.
But her marriage to her husband would not pass the test of time. Black-Duke, 47, soon took custody of the products of the marriage; three lovely kids. Over time, Black-Duke took to sell-ing ladies clothes in Port Harcourt, where she reportedly own a big boutique.
The clothes, it is reported, were imported. She always travelled overseas which to buy them. But Black-Duke remained insatiable for pleasures of life. She actually wanted to give her three children the best that life could provide.
In doing this, Black-Duke started min-gling with the ‘movers and shakers’ in the oil rich city. She was soon introduced into the drug trade. If she needed quick money, that she claimed she needed, Black-Duke would have to traffic in drugs.
Apparently torn between giving her three kids the best that life can provide and going to jail or in-tensify her cloths-selling business, Black-Duke opted for drugs. With the lure of $3, 000 only if she would deliver a consignment to a cartel in Ma-laysia, Black-Duke agreed to courier the banned drugs.
The banned substance she was to courier to the Asian nation was neither cocaine nor heroine, those two she knew too well.
She was told she would courier metham-phetamine to Malaysia.
Oblivious of what methamphetamine was, Black-Duke’s sponsors assured her that the drug was of lesser importance as cocaine and heroin.
She was also reportedly assured of easy passage at the airport as they claimed they would have ‘cleared the way’ for her.
That was not to be after all. Black-Duke was truly desperate to make it big.
She soon gave her consent to the Malaysian trip, with $3, 000 being dangled before her.
Initially, her sponsors informed her that she would have to swallow the drugs, but she admittedly refused to swal-low it for fear of it bursting in her tummy.
Instead she hid the drugs in her under-pants, hoping she would not be frisked down her torso.
On her appointed day to jet out of the country, Black-Duke arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos with the drugs well hidden.
Moments to the appointed time for departure, passengers scheduled for Egypt Airline en route Kua-lar Lumpur, Malaysia were called for rou-tine screening.
Black-Duke was soon found to be laden with some banned drugs. One kilogranmme of methamphetamine was discovered in her underpants.
Without wasting time, she was whisked to the observation room of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
She soon confessed to her crime and is currently assisting anti-narcotics agents with information regarding her sponsors and other collaborators.
Black-Duke, who blamed her love for quick money for her current travails, claimed she could no longer rely on the pro-ceeds from her boutique to cater for herself and three kids.
“I agreed to smuggle the drugs because they promised to pay me 3,000 dollars.
I will blame myself because I needed quick mon-ey.
To me the 3,000 dollars was an additional profit to my trading business. I was given the drug to swallow but I could not ingest it for fear that it might burst so I hid it in my underwear.
It was a momentary temp-tation that overwhelmed me. I was devas-tated when the drug was discovered by the officers at the screening. Many reasons led me into drugs.
First of all is the welfare of my children. There is the problem of house rent, feeding and general upkeep of my family.
All I need is mercy. I was reasonably ignorant of the gravity of the offence. They told me it was a lesser drug to cocaine and assured me of easy passage.
They did not say that I could be arrested,” she said.
Speaking on Black-Duke’s arrest, Chair-man of the NDLEA, Alhaji Ahmadu Giade, said that every arrest and seizure of drugs recorded by the agency takes the country forward in the anti-drug campaign, and vowed that his men would not relent in bringing sanity back into the country.
“Each time we seize drugs and arrest drug suspects it takes us closer towards at-taining our drug-free mark.
We must con-tinue to do our best to create a drug-free society for all in the country.
Stakeholders should equally lend their supporting hand because no agency or country can win the battle alone” Giade said.
Mitchell Ofoyeju, NDLEA spokesman, told Saturday Mirror that Black-Duke’s excuses for going into the trade were in-consequential adding that she would be charged to court upon completion of inves-tigations
