‘Grandma Escobar’

 She is a candidate for the Guinness Book of World Records – not just on account of her age, but for the crooked act in which she was reported caught. One hundred and one-year-old granny, Esther Ogunmabo, was lately arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for trading in cannabis. 

It marked a world record – though an infamous one – because the oldest person previously  known was retired Australian oral surgeon, Victor Twartz (91 years), who in 2015 was tagged the world’s oldest drug smuggler when he was caught at Sydney Airport with 4.5kilograms of cocaine hidden in bars of soap. He had been manipulated by an online cartel into acting unwittingly as a courier.

Centenarian Ogunmabo was apprehended on 15th August in Ilisan, Ogun State, with 90 grams of retail sachets of skunk, a strain of cannabis that she reportedly sold in the community. A statement by NDLEA spokesman, Femi Babafemi, said the woman, a great-grandmother, told agency operatives she took up the illicit trade after her provisions shop got razed by fire.

Babafemi, in his statement, said: “NDLEA operatives on Saturday, August 15, 2026, arrested a 101-year-old woman, Esther Ogunmabo, in Ilisan, Ogun State, with retail sachets of skunk, a strain of cannabis, weighing 90 grams, which she claims she sells to locals. The centenarian told operatives that she resorted to the illicit drug trade after her provisions shop was razed by fire, adding that one of her daughters, who resides in Lagos, arranges the supply of the substance to her every four days, which she in turn sold in bits.” 

The centenarian’s apprehension was listed among the agency’s recent crackdowns on illicit drugs and breakthroughs recorded across Nigeria’s land and maritime borders. There were seizures made on the high seas in Akwa Ibom State, at Apapa and Lekki ports in Lagos, at the Federal Capital Territory, in Ondo, Kano and Abia states as well as at Seme border in Badagry area of Lagos, among others.

Following Ogunmabo’s arrest, NDLEA Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Brigadier-Gen. Buba Marwa (rtd.) reportedly directed that she be granted bail and placed on counselling in view of her advanced age. Babafemi added that the centenarian’s daughter allegedly supplying her the illicit item had also been arrested.

It was thoughtful of the NDLEA boss to have ordered soft-handling of the centenarian, because her case symptomised serial failure of societal safety nets more than criminal intent on her part, in my view. Actually, I think she should have been spared the routine pictorial documentation NDLEA makes of arrested suspects by which their identity and alleged offences are put on public display. Of course, it could be that the agency needed visual proof to lend credence to its narrative about the aged woman. Still, rules are made for man and not man for rules. 

Whereas Ogunmabo’s face was blurred out in the picture circulated in the media, her bio-brief on bold display negated whatever measure of protection the blurred visage was aimed at giving. And the psychological harassment the pictorial documentation must have entailed for her is only to be imagined. That is not to mention the social stigmatisation that the documentation routine is apparently intended by NDLEA to accomplish. At Ogunmabo’s age, she is entitled to some concessions from society, and such protection as canvassed is one of them.

Meanwhile, there is the question of motivation. That the centenarian pawned cannabis to locals and could restock at regular intervals showed there was market for the illicit item and she probably thought she was meeting some societal need. It was sheer cruelty on the part of people around her that she was not enlightened otherwise and advised of legal consequences of her enterprise. Chances are high that she wouldn’t choose to willfully dare the law at her age if she knew what that could mean for the remainder of her days, especially as there were no reports of her being a habitual lawbreaker in her younger years. In other words, market availability without helpful enlightenment railroaded her into criminality. 

“Centenarian drug peddler: her case symptomised serial failure of societal safety nets more than criminal intent on her part”

Where she can be encouraged to restitute in the course of her counselling by NDLEA assignees is for her to identify her customers – at least the regulars – who could in turn be taken in for counselling and enrolled in drug rehabilitation programs.

Neither does economic motivation make sense in the Ogunmabo case. You wonder what financial needs someone so favoured by nature to live up to 101 years in apparent good health would have to warrant her engaging in illicit drug trade. The NDLEA statement said she reported taking up the criminal enterprise after her provisions shop got razed by fire. But you wonder if that was out of compelling economic needs she had, or she just wanted to stay active and relevant to society.

Either way, society failed her. If a 101-year-old needed to be economically active to meet her needs, it is glaring that her family and the wider society failed in giving her needed socio-economic protection. For instance, couldn’t the daughter who reportedly supplied her the illicit item at regular intervals to trade in have simply given her stipends at those intervals rather than cannabis? And if the daughter couldn’t think so clearly by herself, the wider family and ultimately the community could have called her to her senses. But no, they didn’t! On the other hand, if Ogunmabo had merely wanted to stay economically active, the question arises again as to whether she even knew enough to appreciate that the traded item was illegal. It was up to society to guide her and it didn’t.

Now, the centenarian is a publicised drug suspect and she has that reputation to live with before her children and grandies for the rest of her days. At her age and suspected level of consciousness, the view of the wider society may not bother her much. But history also mercilessly keeps records. She goes down in the archives as topping a club of infamy that, besides Victor Twartz in Australia, features people like Ola Mae Agee (aged 87), who in 2011 was labeled the world’s oldest street-level dealer after being jailed for selling crack cocaine out of her home in Florida. There was also Francis Cook (aged 83), who was named Britain’s oldest drug dealer after the police discovered he was running an operation by which nearly 200 cannabis plants were being grown. He was convicted in 2012. 

Ogunmabo has been labelled ‘Granny Escobar’ in some reports, referencing Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist and politician who was the founder and leader of the Medellín Cartel and was notorious as “King of Cocaine.” But she’s by no means like Escobar – a willful drug merchandiser who leveraged violence to ply his trade. She is a victim of treachery of society. Society failed her and should make it up to her.