The Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Mohamed Marwa (retd.), has admitted that new drug cartels continue to emerge despite the agency’s operations against trafficking networks across Nigeria.
Marwa made the admission on Thursday in Abuja while warning NDLEA officers that the fight against illicit drugs has no foreseeable end and must be treated as a generational battle. “For every cartel we dismantle, intelligence tells us another will attempt to rise. For every corridor we shut down, traffickers will search for another route,” Marwa said.
He spoke at the 12th Chairman/Chief Executive Officer’s Commendations and Awards ceremony at the NDLEA headquarters, where 274 personnel, 18 commands and 19 non-governmental organisations and media organisations were honoured for their contributions to the anti-drug campaign.
Marwa said the persistent emergence of new trafficking networks meant that NDLEA personnel could not afford to become complacent after successful operations. “The war against illicit drugs is not a campaign with an end date. It is a generational responsibility,” he said.
His remarks came as he highlighted recent operations against several major drug networks, including the dismantling of the Amadi Simon cartel, the takedown of two Nigerian-Mexican methamphetamine cartels allegedly operating from forests in Ogun and Oyo states, and the disruption of a tramadol cartel using the Togo-Benin Republic-Nigeria corridor.
Marwa said the operations demonstrated the changing nature of the drug trade and the determination of traffickers to exploit new routes and locations. “These were not simple raids.
They were the product of patient intelligence-gathering, cross-border cooperation, and officers willing to go where the criminals believed no one would follow,” he said.
The NDLEA boss, however, acknowledged that enforcement alone would not end the country’s drug crisis.
He said civil society organisations and the media remained critical to tackling drug abuse, particularly through community interventions, rehabilitation advocacy and public awareness. “The fight against drug trafficking and substance abuse was never going to be won by enforcement alone,” Marwa said.
He said NGOs were helping young people recover from addiction in communities, while journalists were exposing trafficking routes and reporting on rehabilitation and families affected by drug abuse.
“Our partners in civil society and the media have been the multiplier effect on everything this Agency does. You have taken our message into homes, schools, and communities that our uniforms alone could never reach,” he said.
Marwa urged NDLEA officers to regard the award recipients as a standard to emulate rather than a ceiling for their performance. He also told the agency’s civil society and media partners that the recognition was an invitation to intensify their efforts rather than a reward to rest on.
The NDLEA chairman said more individuals and organisations contributing to the anti-drug campaign would be recognised in subsequent editions of the awards.
He described Thursday’s ceremony as “the beginning of a tradition, not a closed chapter,” while congratulating the recipients and thanking their families and Nigerians for their continued support.
