Plateau State Governor, Barr. Caleb Mutfwang and the Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig.-Gen. Mohamed Marwa (rtd) have agreed to strengthen collaboration between the state government and the anti-narcotic agency with a view to curbing the scourge of substance abuse and illicit drug trafficking in the state.
The agreement was reached on Thursday, when Governor Mutfwang paid Marwa a courtesy visit at the agency’s national headquarters in Abuja.
NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi disclosed this through a statement in Abuja on Thursday.
Marwa, while commending the Governor for his commitment to ensuring peace, security of lives and property on the Plateau, noted that a total of 6,975.6 kilograms of illicit drugs such as Cocaine, Heroin, Methamphetamine, Cannabis and Opioids were seized across the state in the last two years.
According to the statement, the seizures also led to the arrest of 1,720 suspects and conviction of 156 others while the trial of others are ongoing.
Babafemi said, “To further strengthen the agency’s drug demand reduction efforts, Marwa urged the governor to support with a standard rehabilitation centre, activate drug control committees at the state, local government and community levels, in addition to adopting drug testing policy in schools, homes and communities across the state.”
Speaking earlier, Governor Mutfwang commended Marwa’s leadership skills in the turnaround and performance of NDLEA since he assumed the chairmanship of the Agency in 2021.
According to him, “We’ve followed keenly your performance and we can say that since your coming on board, NDLEA has gone about its functions with more vigour, with more determination. And I know that quite a lot of the people who profit from trading illicit drugs have not found it easy since your coming on board”.
Speaking on the partnership, the governor expressed the Plateau State Government’s genuine concern about the impact that substance abuse and trading in illegal drugs is doing in the state, saying, “We want to seek better ways of collaboration. “
“We continue to look for ways and means of trying to reduce the influence of substance abuse in our society. And one thing that is very critical, while we have paid a lot of attention to the demand side, to the user, we need to look again at the supply side.
“On our part as a state, we are willing to be able to collaborate more with you and make sure that we reduce this menace to the barest minimum.”
He stressed that the visit was made to reinvigorate that cooperation, noting that so far, the state has enjoyed the cooperation of NDLEA staff in the state and want to continue to do more by sharing information and intelligence in exploiting further measures for the state and the agency to collaborate to fight the scourge of illicit drugs.
