NDLEA Gets Court Permission To Keep Baba Suwe For Another 15 Days

The end of the travails been suffered by Nollywood actor Babatunde Omidina (Baba Suwe) in the hands of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) seems not to be in sight as the agency has  secured the permission of a Federal High Court, presided over by Justice Okechukwu Okeke, to keep the embattled actor in detention for 15 more days.   Baba Suwe was arrested on 12 October while attempting to board an Air France plane to France for the naming ceremony of his friend's child after the x-ray machine at the airport allegedly showed he had ingested hard drugs.  

The agency had kept Baba Suwe in custody and closely monitored his excrement for traces of the drug. But after the third excrement, nothing has been found to indict him. His continued detention had also provoked reactions from among his family members and colleagues in the movie industry resulting in the plans by his lawyer, Bamidele Aturu, to institute a N1 billion suit against the agency on his behalf.  

It was learnt that the NDLEA became threatened by a letter written to its Director-General, Mr. Femi Ajayi, by Bamidele Aturu, a human rights lawyer, demanding the immediate release of his client, pay a fine to him and issue a public apology or he would make the agency face a legal suit.   This move, a source within the agency said, made the agency rush to the court to seek permission for an extension of his detention on the premise that the agency had discovered some evidence that could assist its investigation just after warning lawyers and human rights activists who may be interested in the case not to distract the agency.  

Officially however, the agency says its recent action is based on the CT scan results it obtained on Baba Suwe by a consultant radiologist with Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Dr. Subhash Vijayvargiya, after the actor was taken for a scan at the Lagos state government-owned hospital.   NDLEA intelligence officer, Femi J. Osifuye, also said that while on observation, Baba Suwe refused to eat claiming that he eats only once in three days.

While claiming that the case of Baba Suwe was not an isolated one, he said it would take more days for him to excrete the hard drugs.