Drug lords responsible for funding terrorism in Nigeria – Senate President

Nigeria’s Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, has blamed the lingering insecurity in the country on the funding activities of drug lords who provide support to insurgent groups.

Lawan said this when the Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brigadier-General Buba Marwa (Rtd), paid a visit to his office on Thursday at the National Assembly, Abuja.

He said: “Let me say that Nigeria, as a country, is in one way or the other a transit route for drugs.

“Drug peddlers pass their drugs through Nigeria – cannabis, heroin and possibly even cocaine.

“We believe that this has to stop because the proceeds of such activities fund terrorism, they fund banditry, you wonder how the bandits have RPGs and these massive arms that they have.

“Definitely, these are some acquisition provided by some barons, not the bandits themselves.”

According to him, such drug barons, who engage in trafficking heroin, cannabis and cocaine, have made Nigeria a major transit route for plying the illicit trade, which he added, was responsible for the rise in criminality in the country.

He, therefore, called for the restructuring of the NDLEA so as to further empower it to rise to the occasion of clamping down on the criminal activities of drug traffickers operating in the country.