Marwa: A General Who Ages Backwards At 73

Let me start with a confession that has become something of a running joke among those of us who work closely with Chairman/Chief Executive of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig Gen Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), the man simply refuses to age like the rest of us.

I witnessed this again, quite hilariously, in the last week of August, at an international conference at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, where he was one of the invited speakers before a distinguished gathering of global policy experts, academics, law enforcement chiefs, lawyers, and judges among others. A good number of notable Nigerians were also present. On Tuesday, 25th August, minutes to his scheduled presentation, some Nigerian delegates who had been eager to catch a glimpse of him and exchange pleasantries kept asking me, “Where is the General?” He was, at that point, standing right there among them in the waiting area, dressed in a fitted deep blue suit, and not one person recognised him. It was only when he began speaking with me, and his familiar soft voice gave him away, that the penny dropped. “Ah, see the General here” one of them exclaimed, almost in disbelief.

The story did not end there. Later that evening, after I had sent out a press statement with a video clip of his presentation, a friend who works with the BBC reached out to me in some astonishment. “Is this Marwa?” she asked, watching the clip. “Of course,” I replied. Her response summed up the sentiment of the day: “This man is really young. He should stop wearing agbada, for God’s sake. Wow!”

I share this not merely as an amusing anecdote, but because it says something deeper about the man himself. Marwa’s youthful bearing is not an accident of grooming or tailoring; it is the outward expression of an inward vigour, a mind and spirit that remain restlessly engaged with the work of nation-building. Men who carry the weight of purpose lightly tend to wear their years lightly too, and today, as he turns 73, that truth stands fully on display.

Even though my relationship with him dates back three decades, it has been my privilege, in my capacity as Director, Media and Advocacy of the NDLEA, to work closely with General Marwa and to observe, at close range, the qualities that have made him one of Nigeria’s most consequential public servants across five decades of service. What strikes me most is not simply his academic qualifications from the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University; his impressive résumé, distinguished military career, Military Governor of the old Borno state (which is present Borno and Yobe states combined), Military Administrator of Lagos State, his diplomatic assignments at the Nigeria embassy in Washington and the Nigerian Mission at the United Nations in New York, and now the personage who has redefined the war against illicit drugs, but the consistency of character that runs through all of it.

It’s not in doubt that Marwa leads from the front. Since taking the helm of the NDLEA in January 2021, he has transformed an agency once known largely for the arrest of couriers into one that goes after the barons, financiers and cartels behind the drug trade, while simultaneously building one of the most ambitious demand-reduction and rehabilitation frameworks the country has seen. His War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) social advocacy initiative has taken the fight beyond arrests and interdictions into schools, communities, worship centres and the quiet, unglamorous work of counselling and treatment, because he understands that true victory over drug abuse is won as much in the field of prevention as in the theatre of enforcement.

He leads with discipline without losing his humanity, a soldier’s rigour tempered by a statesman’s patience. He is exacting with his officers, yet unfailingly warm with the public he serves. He listens. He builds coalitions, whether with the National Assembly, state governments, international partners, or ordinary community leaders, understanding that no single agency, however well-resourced, can defeat a challenge as vast as drug trafficking and abuse alone.

And he serves with an urgency that belies his years, arriving early, staying late, showing up in the most remote parts of the country to coordinate operations, and travelling across continents, as I witnessed again at Cambridge, to represent Nigeria’s voice at the highest tables of global drug policy discourse.

That is perhaps the real secret behind the baby face that many have continued to ask for the secret behind it, and I can only guess that purpose is the finest cosmetic there is. A man who wakes up each day certain of why he serves rarely looks his age, because he has not yet finished the assignment.

Sir, as you clock 73, permit me, on behalf of your colleagues at the NDLEA and Nigerians who have watched you serve with distinction, to say: congratulations and happy birthday to the Waziri Michika, the latest from your over 30 traditional titles from across Nigeria. May the strength that has carried you this far continue to renew itself, may your voice remain as clear and commanding as it was that afternoon in Cambridge, and may you keep confounding those who think they know what 73 is supposed to look like.

– Femi Babafemi is Director, Media and Advocacy, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).