Drug trafficking: How convicted Nigerian man escaped death in Singapore

Perhaps, a last minute divine intervention was what a Nigerian, Adili Ejike, got from above to escape being hosted by the hangman after being convicted for drug trafficking by the court in Singapore. He had already been convicted and sentenced to death before the divine intervention that saved his life.

National Daily learned that Ejike’s life was saved by the judgment of the Supreme Court in Singapore which nullified the conviction of the Nigerian for drug trafficking offences by the lower court.

National Daily also gathered that the Nigerian Foreign Affairs Ministry in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday remarked that Ejike’s acquittal and freedom from jail marked the first time in the history of Singapore that a Nigerian convicted of possession of illicit drugs and sentenced to death would be set free.

The statement of the Foreign Affairs Ministry indicated that Ejike was earlier sentenced to death for importing about two kilogramme of methamphetamine into the country but was, thereafter, acquitted and discharged by the Supreme Court of Singapore. The Nigerian Government that he was released with no outstanding charges.

The Nigeria High Commission in Singapore was said to have communicated this in a letter signed by Head of Mission in Singapore, High Commissioner Akinremi Bolaji, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The High Commission was said to have narrated: “a three-member panel that delivered the judgment was led by the Chief Justice of Singapore, Sundaresh Menon.

“Ejike’s freedom from death by hanging by the court made history as the first time such a decision was made in a case involving a Nigerian.

“Ejike was arrested in November 2011 and has since been behind bars till May 2019 when he was discharged and acquitted.

“The High Commission affirmed that the prosecution failed to establish that Ejike knew that the drug bundles in his suitcase were in his possession.

“In other words Ejike was not guilty of willful blindness or deliberately shutting his eyes to the truth if his possession of the drugs.

“The acquittal of Ejike has been termed locally as a miracle of God and I am elated that his freedom from death happened under my watch here as the Head of Mission.”

Ejike was reported to have explained that his childhood friend in Nigeria gave him the bag that contained the drugs to be delivered to someone in Singapore.

The Nigerian High Commission had observed that Ejike’s claim raised an important issue about how drug peddlers had been using unsuspecting people as conduits to transport their consignments at the risk of the lives of the possessors of such substances.

The Commission, then, suggested that, “There is a need for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to join hands with other Ministries, Departments and Agencies, especially, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency and the Nigerian Immigration Service, to develop a framework to rehabilitate such Nigerians returning from abroad into the society.”