New Telegraph

Marwa: NDLEA seizes N420bn illicit drugs since 2021

…says 14.3m Nigerians abusing drugs

Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd), yesterday disclosed that over N420 billion worth of illicit drugs have been confiscated by the agency in 2021. Marwa disclosed this at a budget defence session with the House of Representatives committee on drugs and narcotics in Abuja. He informed that over 19,000 persons were arrested within the period just as the agency had secured the conviction of 3,111 persons for different drugrelated charges. According to Marwa, the total drug seized was over five million kilograms noting that about 14.3 million Nigerians were abusing drugs. He said: “14.3 million Nigerians are abusing drugs. This is equal to the population of Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Gambia and Liberia combined.” Marwa lamented that operatives of the agency were an endangered specie as drug barons were assassinating them in the ongoing fight against drug abuse in the country.

He said it was in light of this that the agency proposed to build barracks for its personnel to shield from the killer barons and other criminal elements. He said in 2022, the sum of N24 billion was appropriated for the barracks project but has been unfortunately cut down to N13 billion in the 2023 budget proposal. The chairman, therefore, requested for an additional N10 billion for the projects. According to him, “The barracks issue is very critical to us because as we all know the NDLEA is very aggressive now against drug traffickers and the drug barons and when you arrest and prosecute them and send them to jail, they are not happy. “So, they come after our personnel and with our personnel living in the town and cities and among them, we have been recording casualties and assassinations against them.”

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