Chairman and Chief Executive of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Brig-General Mohammed Buba Marwa has lamented that with over 10,000 personnel and 173 formations including 111 area commands, the agency gets only about N33 million monthly for its operations.
Gen. Marwa conveyed his displeasure while presenting the NDLEA 2022 budget to the National Assembly for consideration.
Deploring the poor funding of the agency, the NDLEA chairman said the personnel of the agency risked the temptation of being corrupted if the funding remained inadequate.
The drug law enforcement agency presented a budget of N38.152,288,851.00 for the year 2022 to the National Assembly.
The budget estimate is made up of N26,662,354,452 for capital expenditure; N998,973,302 for recurrent overhead and N10,499,961,097 for recurrent personnel cost.
The NDLEA chief executive expressed gratitude to the House of Representatives Committee on Narcotic Drugs for its support to the agency.
Gen Marwa commended the committee’s efforts towards amending the Police Trust Fund Act and the bill sponsored by the chairman of the House Committee on Narcotic Drugs, Dr. Francis Ottah Agbo on compulsory routine drug tests.
Earlier, the Chairman, House Committee on Narcotic Drugs, Dr. Ottah Agbo had commended Marwa for turning the NDLEA around within a short time of assuming office.
Agbo said the agency was dead before Marwa restored it to life. The lawmaker commended the NDLEA chairman and his team for recording huge successes in less than 10 months.
The chairman expressed the belief that the Federal Government could take advantage of the success story of NDLEA to redeem the battered image of Nigeria.
He recalled that the President Olusegun Obasanjo used NAFDAC under the leadership of the late Professor Dora Akunyili to rebrand the country.
Agbo said the 9th National Assembly was committed to partnering with the NDLEA to tackle the drug scourge, which, he cautioned, would destroy Nigeria if not urgently checked.
To strengthen the NDLEA, the lawmaker listed bills being sponsored by his committee to include amendment of the NDLEA Act to amongst other things wipe out option of fine usually granted drug offenders as well as make them forfeit all their assets upon conviction by the court of law.
He also mentioned another proposed bill to make routine drug test compulsory for politicians, students, pilots, security personnel, et cetera.
Agbo added that he was proposing a bill to make the agency get its funding directly from the Presidency while the bill to amend the Police Trust Fund Act and make the NDLEA a beneficiary of the funds had passed first reading.
The lawmaker who is also the chairman of the minority caucus, declared the House Committee on Narcotic Drugs was not in support of the bill to legalise the use of cannabis in Nigeria.
