Man, 36, Bags Life Jail Term Over Cocaine Importation

BEVERLY HILLS, CA, March 21, (THEWILL) - A 36-year-old man is to spend the rest of his life in jail for unlawful importation of cocaine.

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja passed the judgement on  the man,  Calistus Sunday Chukwukelu, on Friday.

The man who said he was planning to get married later this year, was nabbed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja on January 1 on his way back from Sao-Polo, Brazil  via an Ethiopia Airline flight.

The officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) who arrested him with 1.

470 kilogramme of cocaine consequently charged him to court under Section 11 (a) of the NDLEA Act, which prescribed a maximum sentence of life imprisonment on conviction.

Presiding judge, Justice Adeniyi Ademola, convicted him though he pleaded  with the court for leniency, Saying he became a courier when his shop, where he sold clothes in Lagos, got burnt.

He also said he had an aged mother to cater for but  Justice Ademola said his plea of leniency was insufficient to stop  the court from jailing him for life.

   Justice Kolawole noted that  aside the fact that the law under which Chukwukelu was charged prescribed life imprisonment, evidence from his international passport indicated that he had gone far in the illegal drug trade.