Follow Us on Google
Agency honours 274 personnel, others
The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Mohamed Marwa (retd.), has warned officers of the anti-narcotics agency that the war against illicit drugs has no end date, describing it as a generational responsibility that will outlast any single cartel bust or shuttered smuggling route.
Marwa gave the charge on Thursday during the NDLEA’s 12th Chairman/CEO’s Commendations and Awards Ceremony at the agency’s national headquarters in Abuja, where 274 personnel were honoured for outstanding performance, alongside 18 best-performing commands and 19 NGOs and media organisations recognised for their role in the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) advocacy campaign.
“The war against illicit drugs is not a campaign with an end date,” Marwa said. “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.”
The NDLEA boss used the ceremony to credit civil society groups and journalists as force multipliers in the fight, arguing that enforcement alone could never defeat drug trafficking.
He said NGOs work quietly within communities to pull young people back from addiction, while reporters have told difficult stories on trafficking routes, rehabilitation, and family recovery—stories he said were “not always easy to tell.”
Other News
“Our partners in civil society and the media have been the multiplier effect on everything this Agency does,” he said. “You have taken our message into homes, schools, and communities that our uniforms alone could never reach.”
Marwa acknowledged that many deserving organisations and platforms remain unrecognised, calling the ceremony “the beginning of a tradition, not a closed chapter,” and promising that future editions will expand recognition to more individuals and groups.
He cited three operations he said captured the agency’s character over the past year: the dismantling of the Amadi Simon drug cartel; the takedown of two Nigerian-Mexican methamphetamine cartels operating from forests in Ogun and Oyo states; and the disruption of a tramadol cartel exploiting the Togo–Benin Republic–Nigeria corridor, which he said had for years fuelled opioid abuse among Nigerian youth.
“These were not simple raids,” he said. “They were the product of patient intelligence-gathering, cross-border cooperation, and officers willing to go where the criminals believed no one would follow.”
Marwa urged NDLEA officers to treat the honourees as a benchmark to strive for rather than a ceiling on achievement and told civil society and media partners to see their recognition as an invitation to do more. He thanked the families of award recipients and Nigerians who continue to place their trust in the agency.
