Marwa tasks NDLEA officers to intensify war against illicit drugs

Boosts their moral with the award, cash gift

Chairman/Chief Executive of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Mohamed Buba Marwa, has charged officers and men of the agency to intensify the fight against drug abuse and trafficking so as to rid the country of hard drugs.

He applauded them for the achievements recorded within the short period he assumed office as chairman of the agency, stating that reward for hard work is more work.

The NDLEA boss, who gave the charge when he visited the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) and the Lagos State commands with other directors of the agency to boost their morale, declared that the renewed war against drug trafficking was a fight to finish. He urged them not to relent in their efforts.

Marwa, who expressed satisfaction with the record of activities of the agency in the last two months, disclosed that for the whole of 2019, MMIA Command only recovered 34.109kgs of cocaine and 21.72kgs of heroine, but that with less than three months in 2021, the command had seized 63. 217kgs of cocaine and 950kgs of heroine.

The NDLEA boss said on his assumption of office, he had a meeting with all top commanders when he promised to reward any command with the most outstanding performance bi-monthly, adding that based on his promise, the MMIA Command merited the award. He, thereafter, presented the Commander, Ahmadu Garba, with a plaque and a cash gift.

The NDLEA boss said he was aware of all the challenges being faced by the officers in the course of performing their responsibilities, but promised that very soon, everything would be resolved.

“I am aware of what is going on here, both operationally and administratively, and I must congratulate this command for your tenacity, efforts, and aggressiveness, you cannot win this war against drugs by sitting down, we must go on the offensive on a daily basis, we should take the war personal because we are Nigerians, those who are bringing in these drugs want to corrupt and destroy our own children, so, we are attacking the problem professionally with the agency, we are also doing it for ourselves and for our families and for our communities.

“We can’t allow people to come into Nigeria to destroy us. And you have done very well so far, and I urge you to keep it up. If you open the newspapers today or watch television every day, you will see crimes; either that they are kidnapping school children or killing people; they all use drugs before going to perpetuate this evil, and until we tackle this issue of drug we may not see the end of insecurity, it has to go together,” he said.