UK Partnership With Nigeria On Drug War Yielding Results — Home Office

 The United Kingdom Home Of­fice International Operations, HOIO, has said its collabora­tion with Nigeria on the fight against substance abuse and illicit drug trafficking is yield­ing positive results as evident by the streak of successes being recorded by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, ND­LEA, in recent times.

Head of UK Home Office International Operations, Vic­toria Pullen stated this when she led her colleague, Kristoffer Hawksfield on a courtesy visit to the Chairman/Chief Exec­utive Officer of NDLEA, Brig Gen Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd) to sign a renewed Mem­orandum of Understanding between HOIO and NDLEA in Abuja on Monday 21st October 2024.

While thanking Marwa for an “excellent cooperation”, Pullen said “the issue of drug trafficking is a huge glob­al issue, and like many big challenges such as drug traf­ficking, it takes a huge global effort to try and counter that. I think it’s evident by some of the recent successes and the volume of some of the illicit commodities that your teams are finding that that coopera­tion is working exceptionally well currently, and we are cur­rently really enjoying working with your team on those suc­cesses.”

According to her, “the will­ingness of your teams to work with us and do things differ­ently and try things different­ly, which fortunately is leading to those successes, and we like the way that you’ve worked with the UK and the levels of engagement that we’ve enjoyed with the teams.” She said the commissioning of the NDLEA Marine Command Headquar­ters built and donated by the UK government in Lagos last week was a significant marker in the cooperation between the Agency and HOIO.

“We look forward to see­ing the results of that level of investment that will bring significant benefits to you in Nigeria by being able to stop those drugs from permeating your own society, and also in the global space because the more that we help you to inter­dict and take out of the system here, the less that’s going into countries around the world and into society.

“Our team has got nothing but very, very positive things to say about the relationship that we have with you and your teams, and we very much look forward to the future and build­ing on those and making them a lot better”, she added.

In his response, Marwa expressed appreciation to the UK government for support­ing Nigeria’s efforts to curb the scourge of illicit drug trafficking especially with the building and donation of Marine Headquarters facility to the Agency last week and a similar operational facility at the MMIA Command in Ikeja Lagos last year.