TheCable

Buba Marwa, the chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), says drug abuse among Nigerians is the main driver of insurgency.

Marwa spoke on Tuesday during an interactive meeting with LGA chairmen, security agencies, public transport workers and pharmaceutical companies in Borno state.

The NDLEA chairman said the meeting aimed to combat the scourge of drug abuse among the residents of the state. 

Marwa said no fewer than 35,000 drug peddlers have been arrested while 6,000 convictions have been secured since the establishment of the agency.

He added that the support of all Nigerians is required to sustain the fight against drug abuse. 

“There is no greater problem facing us in the country today than drug abuse. Every community in Nigeria is facing this problem,” NAN quoted Marwa as saying. 

“I am sure each and everyone of you sitting here today knows somebody in his family or his community that is afflicted with a drug abuse problem.

“Every day parents miss money in their houses because the children steal the money to keep the habit.

“In some cases, the parents are the drug addicts, they send the children to go and buy the drugs for them.

“It is a problem that is facing us that we need to stand up collectively to challenge. The fact is that we have had children who killed their parents.

“The other day, a boy killed his mother after she refused to give him the N5,000 he demanded because he needed to sustain the addiction.”

Marwa said the activities of the insurgents in the state are aggravated by drugs.

“We have had experience where the military officers who took over insurgents camps asked the insurgents what was their most important possession and they said it was drugs,” the NDLEA chairman said.

“Once they have their drugs they are happy which triggers them to commit their heinous crimes.

“Insurgents, criminals, bandits and Boko Haram, armed robbers all need drugs to operate.

“We must therefore work in partnership as a society, not just for the NDLEA, all of us are stakeholders.

“We have to stand up for the challenge, face it and conquer it once and for all.”

Marwa urged the LGA chairmen to establish a war against drug abuse (WADA) committees to fight substance abuse in their respective secretariats.

He maintained that such a move would go further to create awareness of the dangers of drug abuse and other vices.

He assured them that the NDLEA would make efforts toward deploying its men to the LGAs and urged the chairmen to provide the operatives with office accommodation and vehicles for patrol.

“We are going to deploy an additional 5,000 NDLEA men. They will soon be in every nook and cranny of the state to stamp out the menace of drug abuse,” he said.

“Already, we have established about 36 rehabilitation centres across the country and when we have a situation that is beyond our facilities, we refer it to the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital.”