NDLEA, Customs sign MoU to combat drug trafficking

The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, on the fight against drug trafficking.

Mohamed Buba Marwa, the chairman of NDLEA, and Hameed Ali, the NCS Comptroller-General, signed the MoU in Abuja.

Marwa described the MoU as a benchmark for information and intelligence-sharing between the two organisations.

He added that it is also a platform for sharing operational and administrative experiences with a view to adopting best practices that work.

He emphasized, “With this united front, there can only be one assurance: that the criminal elements in our society will definitely be the losers and I assure you that they’ll certainly lose big as we come for them to put them where they rightly belong and cripple their crime syndicates.”

Ali, on his part, opined that the MoU was a signal to Nigeria and her international partners that the NCS and the NDLEA were committed to protecting Nigerian borders from illicit drugs.

He stated that they have all along been doing this, finding drugs in the borders, thanking God that the sole responsibility has been removed from them, and had some relief.

He said when they arrest the suspects, they hand them over to the NDLEA, where they will be investigated and punished accordingly.

He added that the coming of Marwa has given them confidence that the suspects would be handled accordingly.

He assured of NCS’s commitment to the implementation of the MoU with NDLEA.