NDLEA Explains Rise In Drug Peddling

Materialism, celebration of questionable wealth and breakdown of moral values, especially among youths have been identified as part of the reasons for the increase in the number of drug peddlers arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.

Airport Commander of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the airport, Hamza Umar, told correspondents that drug trafficking is on the increase because of the unbridled quest for material acquisition.

Umar, who spoke against the background of arrest of a Baggage manager with South African Airways and a baggage handler with the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) Plc, noted that the feat was achieved because of the close collaboration of all security agencies deployed at the airport.

Said he: “first of all, I will want to tell you that the response and our international collaboration is very, very positive and it is an aspect that led to the particular situation we have right now”.

According to Umar, “we have sniffer dogs and the dogs are just very close to us. I think the government is trying. There is a central data that is very important in fighting crime of any sort, be it drug trafficking, be it human trafficking or armed robbery and whatever”.

He said that NDLEA has a major problem of which a man arrested in July has again been arrested last month, pointing out that instead of showing remorse when he was on bail, the man was carrying the same consignment to go to another airport, where he was accosted by FAAN officials.

The NDLEA Commander hinted that the agency has scanners in all the major international airports like Abuja, Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt, noting that the rate of seizures and arrest is more in Lagos for obvious reasons, the traffic, the airline.

“Let me give you an example: before I left Abuja, they had only three international flights – Lufthansa, British Airways and KLM and these three flights are not everyday as at the time I left”, he said, adding that when he got to Lagos, there were 24 flights in Lagos.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) says domestic airlines would not be sanctioned for their indebtedness to the agency.

Its chairman, Abubakar Baraje, who spoke against the backdrop of the agency’s huge debt portfolio, said that sanctioning the carriers could be counter-productive but argued that the sentiment in some quarters is that the carriers should clear their debts, which have contributed to the slow development of the industry.