Meet, Patrick Ojele,’madman’ by day, cannabis cultivator by night

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Commuters on the Awka–Enugu Expressway hardly looked at the madman on most days. There he was, slumped on the side of the road, stumbling with unsteady strides, saying something no one could quite understand.

He frequently wore his shirt unbuttoned and his hair disheveled. He appeared to the untrained eye as just another vagrant, one of the many Nigerians fighting invisible demons on the streets. People became accustomed to ignoring him.

Patrick Ojele, however, was never merely a guy without a soul. According to police, the 43-year-old was operating a covert cannabis plantation in the center of Awka, the capital of Anambra State, while hiding in plain sight and acting like a maniac.

He broke his act on September 17. He was seen by a regular police patrol near Ngozika Estate on the freeway, and suspicion led to interrogation. The revelation of a double existence that had been concealed for over two years came next. Still acting unstable, Ojele guided police to his hidden farm, which was teeming with ready-to-harvest cannabis sativa.

“The arrest reflects our renewed strategy of cutting off supplies to those who embolden cultists and violent offenders,” Police spokesman SP Tochukwu Ikenga stated, disclosing the discovery is more than a one-time bust.

The matter has since been turned over to the Special Anti-Cultism Squad in Enugwu-Ukwu by Commissioner of Police Ikioye Orutugu, who has instructed them to investigate the chain of purchasers and dismantle what seems to be a larger distribution network.

Beyond the police statement, however, Ojele’s account concerns issues of perception, negligence, and the extent to which the extraordinary is concealed in the commonplace. No one paid enough attention to see the pattern throughout the two years that a guy performed in front of a busy city in a theater of lunacy. Was it the ideal disguise in a culture that frequently disregards those with mental illnesses? Or a predacious act of bold deception that preyed on collective indifference?

Residents of Awka now remember the person who many had written off as a bother. They only now wonder what else they might have overlooked in their haste. In a nation where hustlers are always changing the rules, this is about the fine line between survival, creativity, and criminality as well as about using invisibility as a shield.

Ojele was able to cultivate unhindered for two years thanks to the disguise. It serves as a reminder to the city that sometimes the most surprising realities are hidden behind the most commonplace sights.

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