The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA) and Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) have agreed to work together to curb substance abuse and illicit drug trafficking in communities across the country.
This was one of the agreements reached at a meeting when the national president of ALGON, Hon. Aminu Muazu Maifata, led other leaders of the body on a courtesy visit to the chairman/chief executive officer of NDLEA, Brig Gen Mohamed Buba Marwa (rtd) at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja.
Addressing the ALGON leaders, Marwa expressed preparedness of the NDLEA to work with the council chairmen to ensure that people at the grassroots are well sensitised on the dangers of abusing illicit drugs and also provide help for those already indulging in the unhealthy habit.
He said; “We’re particularly happy that you’re here to identify with our work and partner with us because you are the closest tier of government to the people especially the grassroots and our communities where majority of Nigerians reside. This is more so because the drug scourge is in virtually all our communities, no community across the country is spared and as such, we need your partnership to cascade all our efforts in terms of drug demand reduction and even the supply reduction, down to the remote communities.
“This partnership is also important coming at a time when we’re deploying our personnel to the local government areas to establish our physical presence in the rural communities so that we can support you to curb the scourge of drug abuse and illicit drug dealing, which fuel crimes and criminalities in those areas.”
He encouraged the ALGON leaders to mobilise their members nationwide to set up local government drug control committees and war against drug abuse, WADA, committees comprising traditional rulers, community gatekeepers, opinion and religious leaders as well as market and women groups, among others at the community level. These committees similar to what obtains at the national and state levels, he said, will work with NDLEA commands to coordinate the fight against the drug menace in the communities.
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