Pubdate: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 Source: Vanguard (Nigeria) Copyright: 2004 Vanguard. Contact: http://www.vanguardngr.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2890 Author: Salisu Dambatta Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) NIGERIA'S OTHER SUCCESS STORIES Analysis The NDLEA Has Joined the List of Government Institutions Making Waves Internationally. .... Nigerians are justifiably happy and proud of the impact of some government institutions that have done what they are meant to do, that is, rendering services to the society, thereby positively touching our lives, individually and collectively. The most celebrated of these institutions in Nigeria today is the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), under the effective leadership of Dr. Dora Akunyili, a lady who really deserves all the honour and kudos she is getting for a job well done in the promotion and protection of the public good. This is in the spirit of the service delivery vision and focus of the Federal Government. Under the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, several other national institutions are equally performing or doing a good job for this country. And their success stories ought to be acknowledged and celebrated by Nigerians. Take the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) led by Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, for instance. The body has busted several syndicates of big time swindlers who contributed in smearing the good name of this country, the biggest and most discomforting being the US$242 million scam. The newly established Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) is also successfully smoothing Nigerian roads. But the main focus of this write-up is the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the 15-year old government parastatal assigned the responsibility of checking drug abuse, drug trade and other dirty activities in the narcotics underground economy that devastate our image and reputation as a nation-state and as a human society. The Agency came into being when Nigeria was increasingly earning notoriety as a major transit centre for international drug barons, who were bold enough to induce and employ some Nigerians as drug couriers or traffickers, to our national dismay. Although Nigeria started its drug war through the law in 1935, or in the colonial era, the drug problem persisted and became so pervasive that one of the pilots of our national airline was on one occasion involved in the trafficking of hard drugs. There was a dark spot in the history of this country when Nigerians were regularly caught in some European, Asian and American international airports with hard drugs. A former Senator of the Federal Republic was arrested with drugs in a foreign country, to the embarrassment of our fatherland. A military government was so concerned with the damage trafficking in hard drugs and other narcotics-related activities were doing to this country that it enacted a strong law, via Decree 20 of 1984, just as the case elsewhere in the world, making the offences punishable by death. Although the death penalty as a deterrent against drug trafficking was removed after severe criticisms by the media and the human rights community in the country, this has not made the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to relent in discharging its mandate in the interest of this country. And in doing that, it has recorded successes, worthy of celebrating by Nigerians. New leadership Currently under the leadership of Alhaji Bello Lafiaji, an experienced and skilful security administrator, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has earned the country several pats on the back for its efforts, most visibly certification by the United States Government for three years in a row, that was in 2001, 2002 and 2003.It is our fervent hope that the leadership of the NDLEA would do it again for Nigeria this year to save our country from certain penalties, and Nigerians from embarrassing searches in foreign airports, especially against the citizens of countries not certificated as adequately fighting international drug or narcotics trafficking. It is equally important for Nigerians to know that the NDLEA earned recognition and commendation for Nigeria in the year 2002 from the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crimes (UNODC) for its work to take Nigeria off the list of drug trafficking nations. Nigeria is a model in this. As a result of the successful efforts of the NDLEA in fighting the drug and narcotics crimes, Nigeria was re-admitted into the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (UNCND) after being suspended for four years, and the country rejoined the United Nations Economic and Social Commission (UNESCO), also after a four-year suspension, thus contributing to end our much talked-about pariah status in the comity of nations. It is on record that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has commended the NDLEA for its excellence in investigation and the ability to detect lawbreakers. Indeed, information from the NDLEA indicate that Nigeria is currently the secretary of the European Working Group of International Drug Enforcement Conference, while Brazil, Argentina and South Africa have requested Nigeria to assist them in dismantling drug syndicates operating in their territories. Similarly, there is a 'scramble' by West African and other African countries to be availed of the opportunity of training at the NDLEA Academy. The First International Course takes off this month (April 2004)," an informational document from the NDLEA said. Our neighbours were impressed by the West Africa Joint Operation (WAJO) introduced by Nigeria and the United States Drug Enforcement Agency "to facilitate exchange of intelligence and cross border operations in the sub-region." They fully subscribed to the idea and it is working for Nigeria and the sub-region. Sustaining the current routine training of personnel is essential, and the introduction of a reward system for dedicated staff and the posting of some NDLEA officers to some of our embassies in the sub-region for on the spot monitoring and sharing of information on the activities of drug barons there, may be explored. "One of the yardsticks for assessing performance in the counter-narcotics enterprise is the frequency of interdictions. Since October 2000, the figures have been most impressive," says the NDLEA in a prelude to giving the breakdown of drugs seizures, arrests of suspects, successful prosecutions and the number of hectres of cannabis destroyed in the country in the years 2001, 2002 and 2003. NDLEA's arrests The NDLEA said that it arrested 2,855 suspects with drug-related offences in 2001. The figure for 2002 was 2,657 and a slightly lower 2,490 in 2003. Of the 2,855 suspects arrested in 2001, 1,172 of them were successfully prosecuted. In 2002, 870 suspects out of the 2, 657 arrested were convicted. The number of convicts in 2003 was 815 out of 2,490 suspects in the NDLEA net. In terms of hectres of cannabis destroyed, the NDLEA reports that 497 hectres of the grass were burnt in 2001. In the year 2002, the Agency detected and destroyed 502.30 hectres of the weed. In 2003, a total of 455.5 hectres of wiwi or marijuana were destroyed before harvest and unleashing onto the Nigerian and foreign markets. More needs to be done here as "cannabis production and export has increased," the report says. As for Cocaine and Heroine, the more notorious drugs that attract extra interest from the international community, which are luckily not produced in this country, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency reported detecting and the seizure of 89.2735 kilogrammes of cocaine in 2001, 35.3471 kilogrammes in 2002 and an astonishing 134.7427 kilogrammes in 2002. The figures for seizures of heroine were 34.9506 kilogrammes for 2001, 55.6264 kilogrammes for 2002 and 89.5795 kilogrammes for 2003. The seizures saved a lot of damage to potential consumers. One important fact regarding the NDLEA, as indicated in a document supplied to this writer by the Agency, is that a number of its operatives have spurned offers of bribe by apprehended drug barons, "including the rejection of a bribe of N50 million to compromise an arrest of 60 kilogrammes of cocaine worth N1 billion on the streets." The success recorded so far by the NDLEA under Dr. Bello Lafiaji could be attributed to his re-engineering of the organisation, which in turn produced higher staff morale, the fair funding it receives from the Federal Government, the massive material contributions by many state governments, collaboration with its counter-part agencies abroad, the support of the Nigerian media and a general determination on the part of Nigeria to see that drug-related crimes are reduced to the barest minimum. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager