by Chi Ibe

About 1,404.27 hectares of cannabis farmland was destroyed in 2012 in  Nigeria’s South-West geopolitical zone alone making it the largest cannabis plantations in the country, the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has said.

Ekiti State alone had 764 hectares of cannabis farmland making it the state with the highest number of cannabis plantations.

Head, Public Affairs, NDLEA, Mitchell Ofoyeju, on Friday, said the plantations were concentrated in Ekiti, Ondo, Osun, Ogun and Oyo states while Delta and Edo states in the South-South top the list of states with the largest cannabis farms from other zones, the Punch reports.

[READ: N2.3 billion worth of drugs recovered – NDLEA]

When it comes to arresting suspected drug criminals, NDLEA said the North-West geopolitical zone had the highest with 2,185 out of the 8,052 drug suspects arrested.

The South-West also came top with 1,591 arrested while South-South had 1,480; North-Central was 1,230; South-East, 960; and North-East, 606.

In the area of narcotics, Kano State recorded the highest number of arrests, with 705 male suspects. Weighing in at 233,700kg, the total of narcotics seized in the year under review had a large portion coming from the South-South with 106,676.716kg out of that total.

The South-West  with 94,036.265kg; North-Central, 14,472.309kg; North-West, 10,357.895kg; North-East, 4,548.268kg; and South-East, 3,608.309kg.

On the largest volume of drugs seized, Edo came top with 81,541.71kg, next was Ondo with 61,246.35kg; Delta, 23,418.48kg; Ogun, 8,469.99kg; Oyo, 7,232.08kg; and Ekiti, 6,685.23kg.