The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, seized 6,975.6kg of illicit drugs in Plateau in the last two years.
The NDLEA Chairman, retired Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa said this when Gov. Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau visited him on Thursday in Abuja.
Mr Marwa said that the seizures also lead to the arrest of 1,720 suspects.
He said the agency also secured 156 convictions while the trial of others were ongoing.
Mr Marwa commended the governor for his commitment to ensuring peace, security of lives and property on the Plateau.
He urged the governor to support with a standard rehabilitation centre, activate drug control committees at the state, local government and community levels to further strengthen the Agency’s drug demand reduction efforts.
This, he said, would be in addition to adopting drug testing policy in schools, homes and communities across the state.
Speaking earlier, Mr Mutfwang commended Marwa’s leadership skills in the turn around and performance of NDLEA since he assumed the chairmanship of the Agency in 2021.
He said, “we’ve followed keenly your performance and we can say that since your coming on board, NDLEA has gone about its functions with more vigour, with more determination.
“And I know that quite a lot of the people who profit from trading illicit drugs have not found it easy since your coming on board,”
On partnership, the governor said “for us on the Plateau, we’ve come because we are genuinely concerned about the impact that substance abuse and trading in illegal drugs is doing in our state and we want to seek better ways of collaboration.
“We continue to look for ways and means of trying to reduce the influence of substance abuse in our society.
“And one thing that is very critical, while we have paid a lot of attention to the demand side, to the user, we need to look again at the supply side.
“On our part as a state, we are willing to be able to collaborate more with you and make sure that we reduce this menace to the barest minimum. And so, we’ve come today just to reinvigorate that cooperation.
“So far, we have enjoyed the cooperation of your staff in our state and we want to continue to do more, share information, share intelligence and see how we can collaborate,” he affirmed.
The Plateau state governor and the NDLEA Chairman agreed to strengthen collaboration between the state government and the NDLEA with a view to curbing the scourge of substance abuse and illicit drug trafficking in the state.
They expressed their preparedness for the renewed partnership in their remarks respectively.
NAN
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