The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has stated that terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and other criminal elements destabilising the West African sub-region are exchanging small arms and light weapons with drug traffickers through barter trade in the Sahel region.

The Chairman of NDLEA, Brigadier General Buba Marwa (rtd), revealed this at the ongoing Stakeholders Conference on Security in Nigeria, organised by the Ministry of Police Affairs in collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force and the National Central Bureau in Abuja.

He asserted that drug traffickers use proceeds from drugs to fund insurgency and insecurity in the entire sub-region.

Represented by the Director of Intelligence, Kennedy Zirangey, the chairman also disclosed that terrorists and other criminal elements attack communities in Nigeria under the influence of drugs and other hard substances.

He said: ?Terrorists, bandits and other criminal elements are often under the influence of drugs and other substances when carrying out attacks on communities. It is on record that whenever security forces overrun terrorist camps, kidnappers? hideouts, and other such locations, hard drugs like opioids,

especially tramadol, are frequently recovered in large quantities, indicating that these substances are their stimulants and driving force. They rely on these substances to operate.

?Synthetic opioids have become a serious challenge in the West African sub-region, where hundreds of containers of these dangerous substances are smuggled into ports in Ghana, Togo and Nigeria. Aside from local consumption, some are smuggled through land borders into landlocked countries like Niger, Chad, and Mali, eventually reaching the North African region, where there is a large market for these drugs.

?It is no surprise that the significant movement of small arms and light weapons within the region is often fuelled by those involved in drug trafficking, who frequently exchange these drugs across the Sahel for small arms, which are destabilising the region.?

Marwa thanked the National Security Adviser, who recently established a multi-agency committee to inspect ports in Lagos and Port Harcourt, with the aim of destroying containers holding illicit drugs.

According to him, ?Over 200 containers were destroyed between January and April by this multi-agency task force. We know that drug traffickers use proceeds from drugs to fund insurgency and insecurity in the entire sub-region, as traffickers converge with terrorists and criminal elements.? (THISDAY)

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