Beyond Poverty: The Hidden Forces Drawing Elderly Nigerians Into The Drug Trade
By BIMBO ADEYEMI
THE arrest of a 101-year-old great-grandmother for allegedly selling cannabis in Ogun State might have appeared to be an isolated incident.
It was not.
In the months around the case, Nigerian authorities also arrested elderly people over alleged cocaine trafficking, cannabis storage and other drug offences.
The suspects included a 74-year-old man allegedly carrying 11 kilogrammes of cocaine to the United Kingdom, a 67-year-old Nigerian-British grandmother allegedly travelling with 13 kilogrammes of cocaine, and a visually impaired 67-year-old man whose home allegedly contained 234 kilogrammes of cannabis.
Together, the cases raise a difficult question: why are people who have spent much of their lives outside the conventional profile of drug traffickers increasingly appearing in Nigeria’s drug cases?
The answer appears to lie somewhere between poverty, criminal adaptation, weak social protection, family connections and the belief that older people attract less suspicion.
The Centenarian & the Burnt Shop
Esther Ogunmabo was 101 when NDLEA operatives arrested her in Ilisan, Ogun State, on 15 August 2026.
According to the agency, officers recovered 90 grammes of skunk packaged in small sachets.
Ogunmabo reportedly admitted selling the cannabis in her community.
She also provided an explanation for her involvement.
Her provisions shop had been destroyed by fire, she reportedly said. Without that source of income, she turned to selling cannabis.
She also told investigators that a daughter living in Lagos supplied the substance to her every four days.
The case presented law enforcement with a difficult decision.
NDLEA Chairman Mohamed Buba Marwa ordered that Ogunmabo receive bail and counselling because of her advanced age.
Her case does not establish that poverty drives elderly Nigerians generally into drug trafficking. It does, however, show how a sudden loss of livelihood can leave an older person exposed to an illicit market.
The International Route
The same month that Ogunmabo’s case drew attention to local drug retailing, another set of cases highlighted the international dimension.
On 14 March, NDLEA operatives arrested a 74-year-old man at Abuja airport.
The agency said officers found 11 kilogrammes of cocaine hidden among food items in his luggage.
He was allegedly travelling to London on a British Airways flight.
The cocaine had reportedly been wrapped in foil paper and balloons and concealed among items including ground dry pepper.
The suspect reportedly told officials that he was travelling for a holiday.
Then came the June arrest of Mary Yetunde Barek.
Barek, a 67-year-old Nigerian-British caregiver, was arrested at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos while allegedly preparing to board a Virgin Atlantic flight to London.
NDLEA said officers found 13 kilogrammes of cocaine in 31 large wraps designed to resemble bunches of plantain.
The agency said Barek admitted ownership.
Unlike Ogunmabo’s case, these two arrests involved large quantities and international movement.
They raise the possibility that older Nigerians are not appearing only at the margins of the drug economy. Some are allegedly serving as international couriers.
The Man Paid ₦6,000 to Keep Drugs
The case of Aliyu Adebiyi offers another perspective.
NDLEA arrested the visually impaired 67-year-old in Osun State on 20 January after allegedly finding 234 kilogrammes of Indian hemp at his home.
Adebiyi reportedly told investigators that a drug dealer had stored the cannabis with him.
His alleged payment was ₦6,000 a month, with three months paid in advance.
If investigators establish the account, Adebiyi’s role differs substantially from that of a trafficker controlling a drug shipment.
He would have served as a storage point.
That distinction is crucial because drug networks can distribute risk across several people.
One person may transport the substance.
Another may store it.
Someone else may sell it.
A financier may provide the money.
The organiser may remain far away from the drugs when security agents make an arrest.
The Criminal Networks Are Watching
Dr. Kabir Adamu, a security risk management and intelligence expert, believes the growing number of elderly suspects reflects an adaptation by organised drug networks.
Adamu said Beacon Security and Innovations Limited reviewed NDLEA incident reports and identified at least 30 Nigerians aged 60 to 101 who had been arrested in drug-related cases during the previous year.
He said the number increased when suspects in their 50s were included.
In his assessment, the elderly now appear at almost every level of the illicit market, from local retailing and storage to courier work, financing and alleged leadership.
He believes criminal networks may be deliberately expanding their recruitment pools.
For years, law-enforcement profiling has often focused heavily on younger and middle-aged suspects.
That creates a potential blind spot.
An older traveller may attract less suspicion at an airport.
An elderly trader may appear less threatening at a market.
A grandparent carrying ordinary household or food items may receive less scrutiny.
Those assumptions can become useful to criminal networks.
The Investigator’s Perspective
Professor Adedeji Oyenuga, a criminologist and practising investigator, also identified age-based assumptions as a possible factor.
He said his experience had shown that people generally pay less attention to older people when looking for potential perpetrators.
That, he argued, can give traffickers an opportunity.
An older person can therefore become a courier precisely because security personnel may consider that person less likely to pose a criminal threat.
But Oyenuga also cautioned against assuming that every elderly suspect represents a recent recruitment.
Some may have entered the drug business decades earlier.
They may simply have grown older while remaining in the same network.
Others may have joined because of economic circumstances.
A third group may continue participating because they want to maintain a particular lifestyle.
The elderly suspects, therefore, do not form one uniform category.
Poverty Is a Risk, Not a Verdict
Ibrahim Bidemi Abdullateef, a sociology and criminology lecturer at Fountain University, said older Nigerians could become vulnerable because of poverty, weak social protection, unemployment and inadequate family support.
He also cited declining health and exclusion from legitimate economic opportunities.
Retirement can worsen those pressures.
An older person may suddenly lose a regular salary while continuing to face medical expenses, dependants and household obligations.
Where pension payments are inadequate or delayed, the pressure can become more severe.
Yet Abdullateef stressed that poverty does not automatically turn people into criminals.
Instead, financial hardship can weaken the ability to reject illegal opportunities.
The same applies to social isolation.
After retirement or bereavement, some older people may experience loneliness, reduced authority or a loss of social recognition.
Abdullateef said criminal networks could exploit those feelings by offering money, companionship, recognition or a sense of belonging.
Family Connections Add Another Layer
Ogunmabo’s case introduces another concern: family involvement.
The centenarian reportedly identified her daughter as the source of the cannabis she sold.
If the account is confirmed, it suggests that criminal recruitment does not always come from anonymous strangers.
It can also operate through family relationships.
That possibility makes prevention more complicated.
An elderly person may trust a relative who asks them to carry a package, store a bag or sell a substance without fully understanding the consequences.
In other cases, the older person may know exactly what they are doing.
Investigators therefore need to establish the nature of each relationship rather than assume either innocence or guilt from age alone.
A Drug Market Becoming More Complex
The cases also occur against a backdrop of increasingly large drug seizures in Nigeria.
NDLEA has intercepted more than 1.6 million Tramadol pills at a Lagos warehouse.
It also recovered another 60,000 Tramadol pills from a wanted suspect and seized 781.7 kilogrammes of Indian hemp during operations in Mushin.
Adamu pointed to other developments, including industrial-scale methamphetamine production and large cannabis shipments entering through maritime routes.
He cited a case involving a 63-year-old businessman who was arraigned over alleged financing and coordination of a Nigerian-Mexican methamphetamine operation in Ogun State.
The example suggests that age can appear at the upper levels of a trafficking structure as well as at the courier or retail level.
Beyond the Nigerian Border
Adamu said the trend was not unique to Nigeria.
BSIL’s monitoring of the Sahel and wider West African region had identified similar cases involving elderly suspects.
The significance is broader because drug networks do not respect national borders.
Traffickers operate through airports, maritime routes, land borders and informal channels.
Where security agencies close one route, criminal organisations can search for another.
Where they identify one suspect profile, networks can look for another.
The use of older people could therefore form part of a wider adaptation strategy.
What Law Enforcement Must Change
The growing number of elderly suspects does not mean security agencies should subject every older Nigerian to heightened suspicion.
It means they need more sophisticated intelligence.
Adamu called for profiling and screening procedures at airports, borders and checkpoints to ensure that age does not automatically translate into a low-risk classification.
He also stressed community intelligence.
Older retailers and storage providers may be deeply connected to their communities.
Those connections could help investigators identify suppliers, financiers and organisers.
Most importantly, law enforcement should follow the chain.
In Adebiyi’s case, for example, identifying the person who allegedly supplied the cannabis and paid for its storage could reveal more about the operation than the seizure alone.
Protecting the Vulnerable Without Protecting Criminals
The justice system faces an equally delicate task.
An elderly person coerced into transporting drugs should not necessarily receive the same treatment as someone who knowingly finances or directs a trafficking organisation.
At the same time, advanced age should not provide automatic immunity to someone who deliberately participates in organised drug trafficking.
Adamu warned that a one-size-fits-all approach could produce either excessive leniency for criminal leaders or excessive punishment for vulnerable recruits.
That distinction should guide investigations, prosecution and rehabilitation.
Social Protection Is Also Crime Prevention
The debate cannot end with NDLEA.
If poverty, inadequate pensions, healthcare costs, unemployment and social isolation make some older people vulnerable to recruitment, then social policy becomes part of the crime-prevention equation.
Abdullateef called for stronger pension administration, social protection, healthcare and livelihood support.
He also urged families to maintain meaningful emotional and social connections with older relatives.
Communities can contribute through support networks and local programmes.
These interventions will not eliminate drug trafficking.
They can, however, reduce the number of people whose circumstances make them easier targets for criminal recruitment.
An Ageing Warning for Nigeria’s Drug War
The appearance of people aged 60, 70, 80 and even 101 in drug cases should not become a sensational curiosity.
It is a warning about how organised crime evolves.
Criminal networks can exploit poverty.
They can exploit family relationships.
They can exploit gaps in security profiling.
They can also recruit experienced participants who have remained in the drug business for years.
That is why the response must look beyond the age of the suspect.
Nigeria needs intelligence capable of identifying the network behind the courier, the supplier behind the retailer and the financier behind the shipment.
At the same time, it needs a social protection system that makes elderly Nigerians less vulnerable to criminal recruitment.
The recent cases show that the country’s drug problem has no fixed age profile.
Some elderly suspects may be victims of exploitation.
Others may be willing participants.
Some may occupy important positions within criminal networks.
The challenge for Nigeria is to tell those stories apart—and respond accordingly.
