US Commends NDLEA Over Busts Of Mexican Meth Labs As Marwa Seeks Continued Support

By Micheal Chukwuebuka

The United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) for Africa and the Middle East, Michael Gonzales has commended the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for its operational successes, describing Nigeria as the clear answer for the first country to visit after his appointment.

Gonzales made the remarks during a visit to the NDLEA national headquarters in Abuja, where he was received by the Chairman/CEO, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), and members of the agency’s management team.

In a statement by the Director, Media and Advocacy NDLEA Headquarters Abuja, Femi Babafemi says Gonzales who assumed office four months ago, said he chose Nigeria first because of its status as a leader and economic powerhouse on the continent, and because of the NDLEA’s leadership and the impressive wins the agency has recorded, adding that he wanted to see “firsthand where the magic happens.”

He cited the four methamphetamine laboratory busts recorded this year as proof of the agency’s best-practice tradecraft: intelligence-led investigations, coordination across agencies and borders, operational excellence, and diligent interrogation, investigation and prosecution.

He said narcotics affect American communities more tangibly than almost any other foreign policy issue, and that the drug trade is international, with very few constraints.

He also noted that more than 40 years of INL partnership with countries worldwide has taken the form, in Nigeria, of training and equipment donations. He said intense US pressure on cartels in the Western Hemisphere was like “squeezing a balloon,” pushing trafficking flows toward Africa and onward to Europe and Oceania. He also pointed to the shift from plant-based drugs to harder-to-detect, deadlier synthetics, and called for sustained action against transnational criminal organisations as a network, including the money flows that facilitate them.

In his remarks, Chairman and CEO of NDLEA Mohammad Buba Marwa said the partnership, built through INL’s institutional assistance and the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s cooperation with the NDLEA is a shared investment in the collective security of both nations.

According to him, “Crime has no borders, and neither does the threat. The drugs we seize, the arms we intercept and the terrorist financing we trace are not separate problems. When we seize narcotics and illicit weapons in the same operations and along the same routes, we are looking at the convergence of crime. Drug money buys guns, guns sustain armed groups, and armed groups sustain terrorism. Terrorism has no borders. What festers in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin does not stay there, and what is trafficked through West Africa does not stop at our coastline.”

Marwa said INL assistance underpins the agency’s capabilities in forensic and chemical analysis, professional training, investigative and financial-crime skills, and equipment maintenance. “This great partnership has fueled our offensives that yielded the arrest of 96,157 drug offenders including 250 drug barons, the seizure of over 15.8million kilograms of assorted illicit drugs and conviction of 16, 691 drug traffickers including the kingpins, in the last five years”, he added.
Warning that any withdrawal of INL support would leave a gap that criminal networks and terrorist groups would exploit.

He asked Gonzales to carry a message to Washington that INL support should be maintained if not increased, noting traffickers, arms dealers and terrorists cooperate across borders every day, and that different government confronting them must do the same.