After 5 ½ Months, Police Arrest Emzor Employee Indicted In BBC Codeine Report

A former employee of Emzor Pharmaceuticals who was indicted in a BBC investigative report has been arrested by the Nigeria Police.

Chukwunonye Madubuike, in April, was caught on camera, selling the product illegally.

Codeine is an opiate used to treat pain, as a cough medicine, and for diarrhea. It is typically used to treat mild to moderate degrees of pain.

Madubuike had said he effortlessly sells one million cartons of the product in just a week, admitting that he also sold the drug to addicts.

Shortly after the report, Madubuike went on the run with the police on the lookout for him.

However, in an interview with BBC, Imohimi Edgal, commissioner of police in Lagos state, said Madubuike was arrested in the border town of Idiroko in Ogun state.

He was reportedly heading to Cotonou in neighbouring Benin Republic when he was arrested.

Edgal said Emzor had reported Madubuike on suspicion of having “knowingly supplied the controlled drugs to persons who were not supposed to have access to them contrary to Nigerian law”.

The police commissioner said Madubuike confessed that he “was only trying to meet his sales target”, adding that he should have carried out greater checks to verify the identity of the person he was dealing with and “regretted selling controlled substances to unauthorised persons”.