尼日利亚某政客涉嫌走私可卡因被捕

A Nigerian politician has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling cocaine at Lagos airport.

一名尼日利亚政客涉嫌在拉各斯机场走私可卡因而被逮捕。

Nigerian drug enforcement officials say Eme Zuru Ayortor swallowed nearly two kilograms of cocaine (4.4 lbs) in order to fund his election campaign.

Police say body scanners revealed（显示，透露） the contents of his stomach as he attempted to board a flight to Frankfurt.

Mr Ayortor, aged 52, is running in the election to the local House of Assembly in Edo state.

'Wider network'

Officers from Nigeria's drug law enforcement agency say they recovered 100 parcels（包裹，小包） of cocaine from the politician's stomack at Lagos' Murtala Mohammed International Airport.

It is understood that Mr Ayortor told officers he needed the money - because his last election campaign, in 2007, bankrupted him.

He was arrested two weeks ago - police are now at the end of their investigation.

They believe Mr Ayortor is part of a wider network.

"The quantity of cocaine we recovered is large," one officer told the BBC. "We believe it may not be his first attempt to smuggle drugs."

Mr Ayortor, a qualified pharmacist（药剂师） , studied at the University of Wisconsin in the US.

Politicians in Nigeria raise large amounts of money at election time: much of it goes on bribing election officials and paying gangs of young men to intimidate（恐吓，威胁） voters.

Last month, customs officers（海关官员） at the same airport seized a consignment（运送，委托） of military uniforms which they linked to politicians preparing for elections next year.

Nigeria is a major transit route（中转途径） for drugs - from South America and Asia - to the US and Europe. More than 300 tonnes of narcotics（麻醉剂） were seized in the country last year.

Drugs law enforcement officers in Lagos have only four police sniffer dogs（嗅探犬） to monitor the airports, land borders and a massive seaport. They privately complain they need many more sniffer dogs to do their work properly.