The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA), has arrested 62,595 drug suspects and convicted 11,628 offenders between January 2021 to March 2025 across the 36 states and the FCT.
The NDLEA Chairman, retired, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa said this during the opening ceremony of a conference for Nigeria Governors Spouses on Tuesday in Abuja.
The event which was jointly organized by the NDLEA and the Nigeria Governors Spouses’ Forum, has the theme “Advanced Training on Drug Prevention Treatment and Care (DPTC) Stage 3 and Effective Management of the State Drug Control Committee.
Marwa said over the past four years, the NDLEA had pursued this mission with renewed and unwavering zeal, adding that this was ensuring that Nigeria’s hard-won global and regional drug control successes were not merely preserved but expanded.
“Permit me to inform this distinguished gathering that over the four years, the NDLEA has deployed substantial resources towards a comprehensive assault on the drug problem, yielding significant outcomes.
“Under the drug supply reduction mandate, encompassing drug seizures, arrests, prosecutions, and convictions, we recorded the arrest of 62,595 drug suspects (Including 68 drug barons).
“We have seized 10,317,137.55 kilograms of assorted drugs, and secured the conviction of 11,628 offenders. Furthermore, 1,330.56553 hectares of cannabis farms were identified and destroyed,” he said.
Marwa said equal emphasis had been placed on drug demand reduction to ensure a balanced approach in accordance with international best practices.
“Between January 2021 and March 2025, a total of 24,375 drug users received counselling and treatment at NDLEA facilities, primarily through brief interventions.
“Concurrently, 10,501 drug sensitisation programmes were conducted nationwide under the auspices of the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) social advocacy campaign, reaching diverse target groups within communities.
“In parallel, a remarkable 3, 843, 789 participants were mobilised to partake in these enlightenment initiatives undertaken across the nation,” he said.
The NDLEA boss said the agency had made intentional investments in the implementation of Drug Use Prevention strategies in recognising that prevention was invariably better than cure.
He said that those targeted interventions were vital in reducing risk factors and strengthening protective factors against substance abuse especially amongst vulnerable and marginalised populations, including our youth.
“However dark the hour, we must not surrender to despair.
“As patriots and vanguards of our nation’s well-being, it falls on us to strengthen our resolve, to move with deliberate speed towards practical and lasting resolutions that will, God willing, break the vicious cycle of drug abuse.
“This capacity building event represents a stride, small though it may seem, in the proper direction.
“Since it is at the community level that the burden of the drug menace is most acutely felt, it is vital that stakeholders, including all of us gathered here today, address the different dimensions of the problem from a community-centred perspective.
“This gathering must strive for common ground, developing indigenous and pragmatic solutions that go beyond mere statistics and harrowing headlines, addressing instead the real and harrowing human toll of drug abuse,” he said.
