Ugandan woman arrested at Lagos airport with 87 cocaine wraps

Operatives of Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency arrested a 34-year-old Ugandan woman at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos on Tuesday, 3 November 2026. She was preparing to board a flight to Uganda at Terminal 2 when she was intercepted during a joint passenger screening exercise with aviation security personnel.

The woman, identified as Farida Nansubuga, had arrived in Nigeria on 29 October with members of her church for a prayer session at the Synagogue Church of All Nations in the Ikotun-Egbe area of Lagos. She told investigators that after the prayer session, the rest of her delegation returned to Uganda while she stayed behind to collect a consignment of cocaine for a friend named Joy, who lives in Uganda.

“While the rest of her delegation flew back to Uganda, she stayed behind, not to pray some more, but to pick up a consignment of cocaine.”

According to the NDLEA, Joy linked her with a contact in Nigeria who arranged a vehicle to take her to a hotel on the morning of her departure. The contact allegedly handed over the drugs and instructed her to conceal them beneath her clothing to avoid detection at the airport.

A body search raised concerns that she had concealed something around her pelvic region, and officers took her to a private search room. They recovered 87 wraps of cocaine weighing 1.15 kilograms, strapped around her pelvic region and held in place beneath two layers of underwear.

Nansubuga reportedly said no specific payment had been agreed, but she expected to receive at least 1,000 dollars after delivering the consignment. The arrest comes amid other reported attempts to smuggle cocaine out of Nigeria using body concealment.

In May 2025, NDLEA operatives arrested a woman at Port Harcourt International Airport over an alleged attempt to smuggle 2.523 kilograms of cocaine to Iran. In a separate operation at Lagos airport, the agency intercepted 750,000 tablets of Tapentadol.