Disempowering The NDLEA: Insider’s View
The 2019 elections have come and gone. It has produced its victors and losers, no matter how illegitimate the ballot was. We did not even discuss several issues that plague Nigeria severely in the campaign season. Dividends of democracy? What we discussed was patrimonial-manias in the shape of the obtuse mantras of “only X can save Nigeria.” Good luck to its promoters. The unresolved issue of interest here is the raging drug problem that is ruining an entire generation of Nigerian youths. Moreover, the problems embarrasses the Buhari government through a BBC expose titled “Sweet Sweet Codeine.”
As the drug problem has been unresolved, the government is going to be embarrassed again shortly. One may ask, where is the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in all of this? One might ask what roles the presidency and national legislators playing in drug enforcement?
Understandably, the staff at the NDLEA are very dissatisfied that the conditions of governance and enforcement imposed upon them through policy. It has indeed undermined its effectiveness in tackling the raging drug problem in Nigeria. A senior staff (the Insider; based in Delta State) who works with the NDLEA, bares his mind on the issue. A former middle-ranking staff (the outsider corroborated his version; based in Abuja).
The Insider is seriously dismayed at drug addiction. It has escalated from a negligible level locally at its inception in 1990. Then it jumps to a rate of 65% (say, in Delta State) in 2018. The 2019 statistics are forthcoming, which comprise mostly youths. With time, the Agency is becoming more ineffectual, a situation no staff is happy with. The Insider in a no-nonsense style lists three key factors responsible for the failure of the NDLEA. Namely, funding, policy and recruitment.
FUNDING
The Insider firmly declares the pernicious lack of funding as “the Curse” crippling the NDLEA. This might not be surprising. The surprise is that funding cuts have made the NDLEA not just an under-performer, but have made its outputs retrograde. There has been a 20-year steady decline in overall funding. The Insider states that in 2018, staff are clamouring for funding levels provided by the Federal Government to the Agency between 1994 and 1999. Back then, at least 75% of the funding for logistics was available.
Underfunding has also ensured that since 2000, the NDLEA no longer has any border or marine patrol units. Which means no tools to prevent the smuggling of goods into the country beyond ports, say the Insider. The Outsider furthers this argument by relating stories of being gagged when reporting cases of drug smuggling via the “oil bunkering routes”. When bunkering ships come to the shores of Niger Delta to cart off crude oil, they do not come empty-handed. They bring in and take away contraband goods, including drugs. However, no data appears to exist in this aspect of the drug trade.
Operational, surveillance and information funding is derisory at the Agency. The Insider states operational vehicles are completely lacking in all the areas of command and that the Federal Government has provided none in the last ten years! Is it not a national disgrace that the Agency hires private commercial vehicles to carry out raids and other covert operations? Also lacking is the provision of functional arms and ammunition which also has not been available in the last ten years. Other deficient operational provisions include the lack of modern scanners, detector dogs, modern-day testing kits, and stuff as basic as handcuffs and gloves.
POLICY
Policy without the political will to tackle drug problems leads to contrary institutions (with opposite outcomes to those intended) and the facade of governance. Our Insider insists there should be sufficient agency independence, good enforcement legislation, up-to-date regulation and the non-politicisation of the NDLEA, especially the absence of political interference from the centre. Alas, the Agency has to await “politics of government” at the centre for every action it takes.
The Federal Government now has a policy inconsistency that has disrupted the effectiveness of the drug law of enforcement in recent times. That is, by introducing of “Ease of Doing Business” (EODB) rules. EODB is a core policy of globalisation put in place to make international business easy for market participants. It should minimise restrictions, spot checks, routine searches. Or any tactics by anti-crime agencies at airports and seaports that prevent the movement of drugs in and out of the country. EODB has, however, created a boon for drug dealers/traffickers, since it has reduced the risk of detection. Most shockingly, the NDLEA must act as observers rather than enforcers at the airports and seaports. Such is rendering the Agency ineffectual in those areas. It would not be shocking though if the airport/seaport operation of NDLEA undergoes privatisation.
When asked if there were any known incidences of pharmaceutical concerns bribing NDLEA agents when they were guilty of drug offences, the Insider’s answer was a resigning “No need”. He said if Nigeria was a sane country, there should be proper oversight and supervision by his Agency of the activities of pharmaceutical companies. But in Nigeria there are none. Again, this is a gaping hole in the drug enforcement in Nigeria.
The Outsider clarifies he has been on several raids on “Old Soldiers” (marijuana dens) and marijuana plantations. Sometimes his team had to hire commercial buses with non-NDLEA personnel driving the bus. This could with ease compromise the whole operation, but no other choices exist. On the contrary, he emphases that they do not raid pharmacies and patent chemist shops for selling tramadol, codeine and Valium. The main drugs fuelling the current drug addiction epidemic in Nigeria. This is nothing short of “regulatory blindness”. It embarrassed him that the Pharmacies Council of Nigeria could shutdown 46 pharmacies and 213 patent medicine chemists in Lagos State alone in 2016 in one swoop for trading irregularities. Nevertheless, the NDLEA could not undertake such actions.
RECRUITMENT
Corruption within the NDLEA is of the “white type”, which is nepotism and favouritism. Once again, the Insider complains that the former years of NDLEA under General Musa Bamaiyi produced a high standard of recruitment. And initial training outside the recruit’s state of origin for non-commissioned officers. Back then, recruitment was non-political. That is no longer obtainable within the Agency. Today, nepotism and favouritism affect the appointment, postings, promotions, course attendance, etc. Things like merit are no longer a benchmark or measure that decides the progress of an officer’s career within the Agency. Instead, who you know and your ethnicity counts more than anything else. The recruitment and career progression should be fair and even, and based on professionalism and specialisation, which must meet the core areas of need of the agency.
The Insider states there is also a serious deficiency in the standard motivational incentives, such as reward systems, which are obtainable in sister agencies around the world. Even in Ghana and South Africa, where police forces also serve as their country drug enforcement agencies, respectively. Other motivational incentives should include proper welfare, insurance, adequate salaries, allowances for transfers, court attendance allowance, information gathering grants, etc. It is not enough to employ a person, make him wear a uniform and deliver services that are far below expectation. The Insider concludes stating morale is low in the Agency.
CONCLUSION
The sole implication of Insider’s and Outsider’s witness is that front-line services we expect of the NDLEA are not possible. Because of poor funding, policy failures and the uneven recruitment and advancement of staff. Since the return to democracy in 1999, drug enforcement has not even been a middle-ranking priority of successive governments.
For staff to be clamouring for a return to funding levels and recruitment standards under the military indicates moving backwards and failing democracy. How to improve the Agency’s performance is clear and how to tackle the growing drug addiction epidemic is straightforward enough. Despite the usual complexities that need to be handled by other agencies in collaborative efforts. The question is, does the Government of Buhari care enough to tackle the drug addiction epidemic in Nigeria, even after being voted into office a second time?
If the presidency and legislators have no interest in curbing the drug problem in Nigeria, a time will come when citizen movements will. But such collective desperation may present a major threat to Nigeria’s own democracy.
Grimot Nane