Easy money: The turn to drug trafficking and the alarming call for strategic clampdown

The turn to illicit adventures for money making in Nigeria has become a problem taking cultural implications on the defining character of the people of Nigeria. The rub off effects of the pronouncement of the turn to sharp practices to make cheap money has continued to disfigure the image of the Country within the international community with a stereotype stench of which Nigerians are now being perceived as potential threats or crime suspects. While it is indisputable that economic conditions in the Country have not been desirable, this is not however a justification for ills and resort to sharp practices to become the dealings of the society.

One escapade which has continued to be on the frontline of sharp misadventures in the Country is drug trafficking. The extension of the sharp practice has recently grown to become an estate with huge sums flowing through the networks. Last Sunday,  the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency disclosed that it had seized over 24,311kg of heroin, codeine as well as Arizona and Colorado variants of cannabis in recent drug busts at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja and the Tincan seaport, Apapa, Lagos. That came barely a week after the Agency intercepted N6 billion worth of Amphetamine, popularly known as jihadists drug, at the Apapa port in Lagos. The Director, Media and Advocacy for NDLEA Headquarters in Abuja, Femi Babafemi, had in a statement last Sunday, revealed that on September 3, at the SAHCO export shed of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport II, two consignments containing 10.350kg heroin and 25.2kg cannabis from South Africa were intercepted. The statement had read partly, “In a series of sting operations between Saturday 4th Sept and Monday 6th Sept, in different parts of Lagos, four suspects were arrested including Mrs. Bello Kafayat Ayo who was picked from Shino Street, Palmgroove Area of the state. At the Tincan seaport, Apapa, narcotic officers intercepted a 40ft container loaded with 22,590 kilograms of Barcadin Codeine syrup on Monday 6th September following intelligence received from international partners on the container since May 2021. The container was also found to include 4,020.03kg of analgesic tablets and 47 cartons of insulated hot pots used to conceal the illicit drugs, all imported from India. Equally, on Friday 10th Sept, a consignment of Colorado weighing 17.5kg and hidden inside a Grand Caravan Dodge Vehicle shipped in a 40ft container from Montreal, Canada, was also intercepted and seized at the Tincan port.”

The NDLEA had also disclosed that it arrested a 20-year-old graduate, Miss Bee Okoro in Abuja for producing and selling drugged candies and cookies. One Idewo Raimi, a 27-year-old dispatch rider who handles door-to-door delivery for her was also arrested..The statement had read further: “The suspects who were arrested at Garki Area 11 on Friday 10th Sept, with a number of their drugged products and 400grams of Loud and Arizona, confessed they have been in the drug business for over a year. In Edo State, a total of 1,425.2 kilograms of compressed blocks of cannabis sativa were seized in a raid on Aviosi outskirt, close to Uzebba, Owan West LGA, on Monday 6th Sept, while on the same day one Yahaya Mamman was nabbed along Zaria-Danja Road, Kaduna with 10.3kg Tramadol and 60.5kg Exol-6. The previous day, Thursday 5th Sept, one ThankGod Danladi was arrested at Tudun Wada Area of Jalingo, the Taraba State capital with 44.2kg of cannabis. In the same vein, NDLEA operatives in Kwara State on Tuesday 7th Sept, arrested a 36-year-old lady, Yusuf Sherifat who recently completed a jail sentence following her conviction by a Federal High Court in Ilorin for dealing in 22 grams of crack cocaine. Her latest arrest along Specialist Hospital Road, Alagbado, Ilorin, followed intelligence that she has resumed sale of crack cocaine in Ilorin metropolis. This time around, she devised another means of delivering drugs along the road to known customers who contact her via telephone calls.

“In Gombe State, raids across the state between Wednesday 1st Sept and Friday 10th Sept led to the arrest of at least nine drug dealers from who assorted illicit drugs weighing over 150kg were recovered. One of such was the interception of a DAF Truck loaded with 128kg of psychotropic substances coming from Onitsha, Anambra State along Gombe-Yola Road.”

It would be recalled the early September, the NDLEA had disclosed that it had seized illicit 2,776,000kg of drugs worth over N100 billion between January and August 2021 and arrested 8,634 suspected drug traffickers including 6,461 males and 547 females, during the period. The Agency had further disclosed that it also destroyed 1,202 hectares of cannabis farms in various States across the Country, while It disclosed that more than 10 million Nigerians abused drugs in the period under review. According to the Agency, as at September 06, it had secured 1,630 convictions, 3,232 cases in court and over 4,269 drug users counselled and rehabilitated between January and August.

The networks of the sharp practice has extended wide with deep rootings which have seen its feet established upon grounds that pose threats against the socio-economic and cultural wellbeing of the Nigerian society. The need to fight against the menace cannot be underestimated. Such call is alarming. However, the approach in fighting the menace is a critical subject to have the networks of the sharp practices surrounding the menace dismantled. It is pertinent such approach be given multi-sectoral and strategic breadth in a bid to attack the fusion of activities clogging to enlarge the breath and length of the menace.

While the instrument of force is paramount, it is essential to subsume same as one structure under a well defined system of response where it complements other institutionalised structures to weaken and dismantle the wide network of the menace. Hence, building and awakening structures within such other institutions as the religious, social, political, cultural and educational institutions with networks of multi-sectoral responses, become sacrosanct to bring into bear the possibility of dismantling the outstretched networks of drug trafficking in the Country. The impacts of the illicit estate have so far had debilitating effects of compounding to the factors ravaging the Country and debilitating its fabrics. It is pertinent that deliberate efforts be led by the Government as an institution, with the complementary push of other societal formations among which are the religious, social, cultural and educational institutions, to consciously crackdown the networks of the misadventure in the Country.