The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has commended the Chairman of the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA,Brig Gen.Buba Marwa for raising the bar in the fight against illicit drugs in the country.
The Minister gave the commendation on Thursday in Abuja when Marwa paid him a visit.
Mohammed told Marwa that he was reliably informed about his achievements which included restoring the visibility of the NDLEA for Local and International patnership and boosting the morale and confidence of staffers.
He noted that the war against illicit drugs and drug abuse and money laundering was a geat task to the government adding that drug money can be used to finance insurgency and terrorism
According to him,a successful fight against drug trafficking would help to reduce funding for insurgency even as he noted that destructive cycles of banditry and kidnapping in recent times cannot be totally separated from illicit drug use and their effects on users who take to crime.
While explaining that drug traffickers proceeds were sometimes injected into legitimate businesses, making hard working and honest people look indolent, Mohammed noted the effects of drug trafficking on the moral fabric of the society because people rarely questioned the source of people’s wealth.
He called for synergy between the NDLEA and NOA to reach the young ones with its campaign against drug use.
Earlier, Marwa informed the Information Minister that he was seeking patnership with the Ministry of Information and some of its agencies in driving the NDLEA advocacy programmes and revealed a horrifying statistic of the use of illicit drugs in the country
Marwa disclosed that there were approximately 50 million Nigerians using drugs within the age braceket of 15 and 54.
The former governor of Borno and Lagos States said one out of seven Nigerians used drugs and of the number, 25 per cent was female.
He listed some of the Agency’s breakthroughs which included the arrest of a Nigerien and a Chadian supplying drugs to insurgents and bandits.
