Picture the international and national illicit drug and narcotic trade as a tree. The roots are buried in the perverted demands, and needs, of an ever-growing population of the young, old, rich and poor of both sexes. Here in Nigeria, the percentage of rural youths and women who are now totally beholden to aphrodisiacs and opioid derivatives benumbs the imagination. Worse still, some variants of psychotropic drugs are now so cheap, so readily available and so easily addictive. Thus, the problem which the Nigerian Drug law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has to deal with goes way beyond the matter of seizing drug consignments, arresting drug peddlers or burning down Indian hemp farms.

The trunk, or stem of the drug tree, which carries water and nutrients to the branches and the leaves, is the international and national drug superhighway. It is this highway that facilitates and projects the drug trade universe. Like a typical tree trunk, it grows ever bigger, as it develops Cambium Cells, just like the process commonly known as Secondary Thickening in the biological sciences. With secondary Thickening, a trunk gets sturdier, and becomes less susceptible to the blast of strong winds and the paltry endeavours of scraggly machete-wielding persons who try to cut it down.

The drug business is a wide universe, with strong and deep enablement from the deep Dark Web. The Dark Web, for those who may not know, is the Alternate Reality that has more cash, more capacity for devilry and even more capacity for perverting and subverting the 10% reality we, law abiding do-gooders, mistake for the actual reality of human life on earth today. Everything, including human body parts and high-end security information of the most secretive of nations, is available on the Deep Dark Web, once you can pay. It is a world better not visited, because a permanent tab is kept on you once you make any form of contact with it.

It is easy to see that the branches of our drug tree are the international, regional and national cartels. The twigs, or branchlets of the tree are the village dealers, city lounges, side street hawkers and neighbourhood facilitators that service various strata of the clientele. The leaves of the tree are the consumers, while the flowers and fruits are distribution, consumption, addiction and disorientation.

As fruits and flowers of the drug tree, the mentally deranged of all ages are all over the place. They spare no efforts, including selling off precious personal or stolen property at giveaway prices, to satisfy their craving. The growing population of disoriented youths who adopt desperate measures, including determined criminality, to keep their drug supplies going, are now a major social problem that should not be there in the first place.

It is against the background of the foregoing that we are to look at the latest exploits of the Nigerian Drug law enforcement Agency (NDLEA). This is not about an officer of the Agency, Francis Ameh Igonoh, who got a special motion yesterday and who emerged the 2024 winner of the prestigious International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) with an outstanding success Award, no. It is about the latest report of NDLEA’s deconstruction and asphyxiation of a massive drug cartel, including substantial sections of its tributaries and clientele.

The agency, last week, announced the successful bursting of an elaborate cocaine trafficking cartel. The two successful operations were in Lagos and Ogun States. Multi-billion-naira worth of illicit drugs were seized and a couple, Bolanle and Olayinka Dauda, were apprehended by operatives of a special operation unit of the NDLEA. They were arrested while attempting to cross the land border to deliver the consignment in Ghana. Some 42 blocks of the Class A drug weighing 47.5 kilograms was found on them and a swift follow-up operation at their residence led to the recovery of another eight blocks of the same drug, this time weighing 10kg

The major points to note here are that: (1) NDLEA operations are intelligence-led, (2) Collaboration with international network or capacities is always part of the cocktail of measures leading to a successful raid, and (3) The recent success stories came through joint operations involving NDLEA officials and the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States.

Also, another stint of the Special Operations Unit, which led to the recovery of about 1,100 ampoules of the lethal synthetic opioid, fentanyl, was intelligence-led. The 6.48kg of the opioid was recovered from a member of a drug trafficking syndicate at Idumota Market in Lagos. The story is the same for about 790 ampoules of the dangerous opioid weighing 5.273kg seized from another member of the fentanyl syndicate at the same Idumota in Lagos.

As was said on this page on March 9, under the title, “Buba Marwa’s NDLEA, “All the arrests and seizures of illegal drug consignments and sundry successes of Marwa’s NDLEA have been very heavy on preemptive intelligence work. There is also overwhelming evidence of thorough going demographic analysis. Within this you find, also, the conscious mapping of drug production, transportation, distribution and consumption patterns. Marwa’s NDLEA is one of the few examples of an organization that is paying deliberate scientific attention to the physical and human geography of drug-related issues today”.

The current exploits also confirm what was said here on the article under reference, namely: “There seems to be, in all of this, a structured collaboration with the international anti-drug network, with focus on predictive, and predictable drug-related activities”.

During the sensitization and advocacy programme for women and youths in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Abuja, a collaborative engagement with Dr Aminu Gusau organized under the platform of WADA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (rtd) said that drug abuse among Nigerians was one of the main drivers of insecurity in the country. He was concerned that the phenomenon had taken a life of its own all over the nation; and was no longer an urban phenomen.

It is a matter or record, born out by our collective experience, that many rural communities play host to a disturbingly large drug consuming population. Marwa has had cause to draw public attention to the fact that the problem of drug abuse among the youths has now become everyone’s problem, which calls for synergy and joint endeavours at all levels. Federal and State Governments, traditional and religious leaders, parents, schools, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Community Based Organizations (CBOs), among others, must work together as a single societal force working for the good of all.

As was said here, “One of the essential takeaways from Marwa at the aforementioned event is his observation that the youths constitute the engine room of every society, which must be in the right shape mentally and physically to drive a better future. But that will not happen if they are damaged by psychotropic drugs. This is a universal problem of humanity, irrespective of tradition, culture, and religion”.

He also said, further, on that occasion; “The youths exhibit attitudes both for the development of society and, at the same time, for the creation of problems in society. Drug abuse leads to criminal offences, and this fuels insecurity, such as armed robbery, murder, kidnapping, and banditry, among others. This also leads to burglary and sex work. Evidence shows that young people use drugs for various reasons, which include relaxation, experimental/curiosity, and enhancing performance, among others”.

His charge of “Go all out for drug barons and cartels”, to NDLEA commanders, when he set targets for Commanding Officers in his 2024 Tasking Orders, which was also his charge to Zonal Commanders, State Commanders and Area Commanders of the Agency, continues to yield visible results. The dismantling of the cartels, distribution networks and other facilitating platforms of the drug universe by NDLEA can best be described as a deliberate, well-designed, structured and intelligence-driven, root and branch onslaught against the burgeoning drug tree.

Today, there is visible evidence of a decline in the availability of illicit drugs. This is largely because of the NDLEA’s progressive asphyxiation of illegal drug supply channels and facilitators. We see the Agency constantly engaging stakeholders within and outside the country. We see the agency taking administrative and other steps that will progressively enhance its operational efficiency and effectiveness. We see, also, that the job of the Agency is a thankless one, and that it cannot rest on its oars.

The NDLEA’s existing collaborations and linkages should be strengthened and deepened. All relevant state and non-state actors must team up as Strategic Partners to drive both the effort and the narrative. Once we burst cartels, cripple distribution channels and undermine drug availability, much would have been gained in the war against illicit drugs. This will naturally impact drug abuse, drug addiction and opportunistic youth criminality.

In the aforementioned article referenced above, Marwa was quoted as saying thus to his Commanders: “This year, we want to raise the bar of our performance and this calls for commanders who are up to the task to be up and doing on the job”, it means that the NDLEA should be helped to “… clean our streets and communities of illicit substances… recently, there is another demand by kidnappers and bandits aside money, which is drugs. In that sense, it means NDLEA is working because they don’t ask for it before, meaning that they’re no longer as available as they used to be and the prices of those available have gone beyond their reach.”

As was said at the beginning of this article, the roots of the illicit drug and narcotic trade is like a tree. “The roots are buried in the perverted demands, and needs, of an ever-growing population of the young and old of both sexes. For us here in Nigeria, the percentage of rural youths and women who are now totally beholden to aphrodisiacs and opioid derivatives benumbs the imagination. Worse still, it is all now so cheap, so readily available and so easily addictive that the problem is no longer a matter of seizing drug consignments, arresting drug peddlers or burning down Indian hemp farms”.

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The fruits and flowers of the drug tree, the mentally deranged of all ages … spare no efforts, including selling off precious personal or stolen property at giveaway prices, to satisfy their craving. The growing population of disoriented youths who adopt desperate measures, including determined criminality, to keep their drug supplies going, are now a major social problem that should not be there in the first place.