A 43-year-old man named Patrick Ojele has been taken into custody by the Anambra State Police Command for allegedly operating a marijuana farm in secret in the state capital of Awka while feigning mental instability.  

The farm had been operated by the suspect for more than two years.  In a statement made on Thursday, the spokesman for the Anambra State Police Command, SP Tochukwu Ikenga, said the operatives assigned to the operations department, Awka, detained the suspect after a routine patrol on Wednesday.  

Ikenga said the suspect was apprehended along the Awka–Enugu Expressway near the Ngozika Estate and later took the team to the covert farm, where substantial amounts of weeds presumed to be cannabis sativa were found.

The statement read in part, “The Anambra State Police Command has arrested a 43-year-old man, Patrick Ojele, who pretended to be mentally unstable while secretly cultivating a marijuana farm in Awka, the state capital.

“The police operatives attached to the Operations Department, Awka, nabbed the suspect on September 17, 2025, during a routine patrol along the Awka–Enugu Expressway near the Ngozika Estate.

“He later led the team to the hidden farm, where large quantities of weeds suspected to be cannabis sativa were recovered.

“The Commissioner of Police, CP Ikioye Orutugu, noted that the arrest reflects the command’s renewed strategy of cutting off criminal supplies by targeting drug dealers who embolden cultists and violent offenders.”

He claimed that the CP also ordered that the suspect be turned over to Enugwu-Ukwu, the Special Anti-Cultism Squad, for a covert investigation in order to track out his purchasers and break up the larger distribution network.

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