US envoy praises NDLEA meth lab raids, Marwa asks for more support
- A US State Department official visited NDLEA headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday and commended the agency's drug busts.
- Michael Gonzales cited four methamphetamine laboratory seizures this year as proof of strong investigative work.
- NDLEA chairman Mohamed Buba Marwa asked Washington to keep or increase its support for the agency.
A senior United States official has praised the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for shutting down four methamphetamine laboratories this year, including sites in the South West and South East that the agency links to Mexican cartels.
Michael Gonzales, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) for Africa and the Middle East, gave the commendation on Tuesday in Abuja during his first visit to the agency's national headquarters. He was received by NDLEA Chairman and Chief Executive, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), and members of the agency's management.
Gonzales, who took up the role four months ago, said Nigeria was the obvious first stop because of its weight on the continent and the agency's record. He said he wanted to see "firsthand where the magic happens."
He said the four lab seizures showed sound practice: investigations driven by intelligence, cooperation within Nigeria and across borders, operational excellence in the raids themselves, and follow-up questioning, investigation and prosecution. He added that drug trafficking crosses borders easily and that synthetic drugs are now replacing plant-based ones, making them harder to detect and more deadly.
He also said heavy US pressure on cartels in the Americas was pushing trafficking routes towards Africa, and from there to Europe and beyond. In his view, the work of both agencies serves ordinary Nigerians and Americans alike.
Marwa lists gains and warns against cuts
Marwa described the partnership, which includes training and equipment from INL and cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, as a shared investment in security.
He said NDLEA operatives had dismantled what he called the largest secret methamphetamine laboratory ever found in Nigeria, in a forest in Ijebu East, Ogun State. Three Mexican specialists and their Nigerian collaborators were arrested there, and substances worth more than $360 million were recovered, he said.
About four weeks later, he said, the agency raided another large laboratory at Tapa Village in Oyo State, arresting a Mexican expert and four Nigerians. Similar sites were later shut in Enugu and Ebonyi states, all said to be linked to Mexican cartels.
Marwa said the labs were not set up to serve Nigerian users alone. In his words, the cartels want "a West African corridor to ship industrial quantities of methamphetamine to Europe, to Asia, and to American cities."
He linked drug money to insecurity, saying it buys guns, guns sustain armed groups, and armed groups feed terrorism. He warned that what grows in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin does not stay there.
Over the past five years, he said, the agency has arrested 96,157 drug offenders, including 250 barons, seized more than 15.8 million kilograms of illicit drugs, and won 16,691 convictions.
Marwa asked Gonzales to tell Washington that INL support should be maintained, or increased. Cutting it, he warned, would open a gap that criminal and terrorist networks would quickly use.
