NDLEA, India’s NCB Synergise Against Illicit Tramadol, Other Shipments To Nigeria

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of India have agreed to intensify their efforts in the fight against shipment of illicit drugs between the two countries especially the illegal flow of opioids such as tramadol and codeine-based syrup to Nigeria from the South Asian country.

This was part of agreements reached during a virtual meeting between the chairman/chief executive officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), and the Director General of India’s NCB, Mr. Anurag Garg, along with top officials of the two anti-narcotics agencies on Wednesday.

According to a statement signed by NDLEA Director, Media & Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, Marwa noted at the meeting the threat posed to public health and security by illicit drugs in both Nigeria and India, while emphasising the need to strengthen the existing partnership between NDLEA and NCB based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the two agencies in 2023.

“The main reason why I requested for this engagement is the illicit importation of tramadol and codeine cough syrup into Nigeria from India. This is a point that I raised the day we signed the MoU. Now, in the last 18 months, that’s from January 2024 to June this year, we have seized over one billion pills of opioids mainly tramadol and more than 14.4 million bottles of codeine syrup. This is why we need the support and collaboration of the Narcotics Control Bureau of India to work with us on this,” Marwa stated.

The NDLEA boss also asked the NCB to assist NDLEA in specialised trainings. “The other point from me, is seeking your assistance on capacity building and training. We have had training in the past from India on drugs and investigation, training for analysts, financial investigation, cyber training, the dark web and so on. We will very much appreciate sharing from your experiences and knowledge and your support on training for our officers,” Marwa added.

In his response, the NCB boss, Anurag Garg, said it was essential for the two agencies to strengthen the existing partnership because the drug problem cuts across international borders, while he assured of their readiness to share knowledge, intelligence and experience with NDLEA on a number of areas of interest.

According to him, “we all know that there are transnational syndicates involved in the illicit drug shipments into Nigeria but we’re ready to work with you on this. Unless we come together, we cannot end this malady because we’re dealing with transnational drug syndicates, they have no respect for borders, national laws. So, the only method as of now is to collaborate, and it is a good opportunity, I mean, this meeting, we can take this initiative forward.

“On the issue of capacity building, we will be happy to offer you training. We have a training centre where we will be happy to host you for any training. I mean, as per your need, we can have a curated training programme through which we will be very happy to share whatever we know on the subject of clandestine labs or precursors or darknet monitoring or investigating darknet vendors and so on and so forth.”