House of Reps to grant more power to NDLEA

The House of Representatives, on Monday, said it would enact laws that will grant more power to the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

It averred that the law would also grant the NDLEA autonomy to become a full fledged agency.

The agency is currently under the Federal Ministry of Justice, being overseen by the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF).

At it’s inaugural meeting on Monday, the House Committee on Drugs and Narcotics, said it was not pleased with NDLEA under the Justice Ministry.

It added that the situation was responsible for the low budgetary funding, which also caused low performance of the agency, over the years.

The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Francis Ottah Agbo, at the opening session of the committee, said the agency had been performing it’s duties with outdated weapons.

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Hon. Agbo, who tasked members of his committee on commitment to drug abuse eradication, regretted that the NDLEA was incapacitated by poor funding.

“If we do our job very well as members of this very important committee, we will be salvaging this country, because almost every crime in this country – call it Boko Haram, kidnapping, cultism, bunkering, armed robbery, etc, are drug-induced.

“But unfortunately, the NDLEA completely survives on charity, so there is little or nothing they can do. So, we must do our best to have an NDLEA that is positioned to fight drug abuse.

“This is an agency that was set up in 1989, but after 30 years, nothing has changed. Because the agency that was established to prosecute drug users, is completely underfunded.

“It is appalling to note that, Nigeria has only 8 sniffer dogs, which were supplied to us by Germans. Another problem is that, the agency has not recruited properly since 1989.

“So, we (lawmakers) must work together to ensure that this is tackled. We must work hard to insulate the NDLEA from the Ministry of Justice. The money NDLEA has as running cost, is less than N200m, even though about N8bn was voted for them in the 2019 budget of the Ministry of Justice, NDLEA has one vehicle to 6 local government areas in Nigeria, with only two personnel per local government.

“So I am sponsoring a Bill to give NDLEA autonomy from the Ministry of Justice, and I want you all to support that Bill”, Agbo said.

He vowed that the committee will press hard to secure autonomy for the NDLEA, and also ensure adequate funding for it in the 2020 budget.

He also revealed that the committee had summoned NDLEA, to appear before it on Wednesday, for its budget defence.

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