Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Brigadier General Buba Marwa, has said that the task of keeping modern societies safe from the scourge of illicit drugs demands global commitment.
This is contained in a statement on Friday in Abuja by the Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA, Femi Babafemi.
Marwa said this while delivering a lecture to academics, students, mental health professionals and Nigerians in diaspora at the Jayhawk Welcome Centre, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, US.
The lecture, which is part of the 2023 edition of the Marwa Africana Lecture Series, is established and organised annually since 2003 by the Department of African and African-American Studies of the university.
The lecture had as its theme, ‘War against Substance Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking: The Nigerian Story’.
Marwa, while relieving the Nigerian experience in the fight against the global drug scourge, said that the NDLEA had been able to keep huge cache of illicit drugs from getting into the streets.
He explained that this was achieve by seizing them at the border or before distribution, adding that intelligence sharing with counterparts in source countries or along the transnational routes played huge role in the success story.
The chairman said that for some 33 months now, Nigeria had run an unflagging anti-illicit drug campaign based on global best practices for drug law enforcement, and guided by UNODC’s Whole-of-Society approach to the drug conundrum.
According to him, while we have achieved remarkable mileage, the Nigerian anti-drug campaign is nonetheless a work in progress.
“Be that as it may, our achievements of the past 30 months, relative to the past 30 years, have bolstered our hope of greater accomplishments going forward.
“The support from our international partners; governments of friendly countries; the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the Nigerian people have strengthened our conviction that the objective we pursue is not unrealistic.
“Now we have before us an open vista where the objective of a drug-free society is a possibility.
“The task of keeping modern society safe from the scourge of illicit drugs requires a global commitment, and in NDLEA and Nigeria, we are doing everything possible to fulfil our end of the bargain.”
Leave a Reply