101-year-old Nigerian woman arrested over alleged cannabis sale

A 101-year-old woman has been arrested in Ogun State as part of Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) ongoing crackdown on drug trafficking across the country.

The woman, identified as Esther Ogunmabo, a great-grandmother, was arrested by NDLEA operatives on Saturday, August 15, 2026, in Ilisan, Ogun State, with retail sachets of skunk, a strain of cannabis, weighing 90 grams.

According to NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi, Ogunmabo admitted that she sold the substance to people in the community.

Explaining her circumstances to investigators, she said she took up the drug trade after a fire destroyed her provisions shop, and that one of her daughters, who lives in Lagos, supplied her with cannabis every four days, which she then sold in small quantities.

Her daughter was subsequently also arrested in connection with the case, as the alleged supplier of the drugs.

Taking her advanced age into account, NDLEA Chairman Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.) directed that Ogunmabo be granted bail and placed on counselling, rather than face full prosecution.

The arrest was disclosed as part of a broader statement detailing NDLEA operations nationwide, which also included the arrest of a 65-year-old woman in Ibadan, Oyo State, with multiple illicit substances, and the interception of cocaine concealed in fufu in Akwa Ibom State.

Marwa commended officers involved in the operations and urged personnel nationwide to sustain the agency’s drug control efforts.

While the case has drawn wide attention for the suspect’s remarkable age, the NDLEA’s decision to place her on counselling rather than prosecution suggests the law, in this instance, tempered its reach with compassion — even if, as the saying goes, prison itself knows no age limit.