The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) have set up teams on both sides to strengthen collaboration on the fight against the interconnected menace of human and drug trafficking as well as substance abuse.
The fresh effort was the highpoint of discussions between the NDLEA Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Brig Gen Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd) and the Director General of NAPTIP, Binta Lami Adamu Bello, when the latter led her management team on a courtesy visit to Marwa at the agency’s National Headquarters in Abuja on Friday.
Speaking during the meeting, Marwa congratulated Adamu Bello on her well-deserved appointment to lead a very important agency like NAPTIP and commended her for hitting the ground running. According to him, “ there’s a linkage between human trafficking and drug trafficking and abuse. Some trafficked persons are used as mules, some may know, some may not know, they may give them drugs sewn into their bag, and they can be drugged to be compliant, to do what they want. So, this is an area that we should collaborate further by signing an MoU that will actually bring about definite and unambiguous areas of collaboration.”
He assured her of NDLEA’s preparedness to deepen collaboration with NAPTIP while he named a three-member liaison team that will work with the team from NAPTIP on agreed areas of partnership.
Speaking earlier, the NAPTIP boss emphasised the importance of deepened partnership between the two agencies to the disruption of criminal networks involved in human and drug trafficking as well as substance abuse.
“Drug trafficking and human trafficking are increasingly connected, both globally and locally. Women and children are used as drug couriers. Victims are also drugged and subjected to substance abuse as a method of control when they are trafficked,” she stated.