A total of 919 suspects were arrested by the Lagos State Command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), with different illicit drugs weighing 95 tons in 2023.
Aside from the arrests and recovered illicit drugs, 237 offenders were also prosecuted and convicted with various jail terms in the year under review.
Assistant State Commander, Media and Advocacy, Mallum Musa, who made the disclosure yesterday, revealed that the convicted offenders’ assets, which included a property situated at Bode Hamid Olowo Street, Mende Maryland, Lagos and 14 vehicles used to convey the illicit drugs, were forfeited to the Federal Government.
Of the 919 suspects arrested in connection with the illicit drug trade, 793 were males while 126 were females.
Musa said: “The command seized 95.083.114 kilograms, that is, over 95 tons of different types of illicit drugs in Lagos within 2023. It did not only concentrate on arrests, seizures, and prosecution, it also embarked rigorously on sensitization, awareness campaigns, and seminars through the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA), an Initiative of the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brigadier General Mohamed Buba Marwa(rtd)
“In this aspect, communities, schools, religious bodies, and organizations were targeted, to sensitise them to the consequences and dangers of illicit drug trafficking and abuse with the intent of educating them to detect and expose those involved in the trade and also to desist and look for a remedy for those that found themselves in the abuse of drugs.
“The successes that were recorded in the year 2023 did not just occur on a silver platter. Rather, it was achieved with the cooperation of well-meaning Lagosians, sister security agencies, and corporate bodies that are passionate about the War Against Drug Abuse and care for the developmental strides of the state in particular and Nigeria in general.
