Drug abuse among young people in Nigeria’s North-West region appears to have reached epidemic levels, with over 3 million individuals struggling with substance abuse.
The Chairman/CEO of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency(NDLEA), retired Brig.-Gen. Mohammed Buba Marwa, disclosed this on Tuesday, July 29, at a two-day interactive session on government-citizen engagement held in Kaduna.
He said: “Drug abuse is one of Nigeria’s top three challenges. The South-West has the highest rate with 24.4%, followed by the South-South with 18%. The South-East is at 13.8%, North-East 13.4%, North-West 12%, and North-Central 10%.
“Even 12% is high. That means in the North-West, we have over 3 million drug users, and Kano alone has about one million.”
He warned that drug abuse is not only destroying families and youths but also fueling crimes like kidnapping, banditry, and terrorism.
Commending President Bola Tinubu’s support in the fight against drug abuse, Marwa said the President helps them fight more effectively by providing additional support, modern equipment, and bolstering their workforce.
He said: “Since President Tinubu came in, we now have better tools, more staff, and stronger support. We are now present in airports, seaports, highways, and we even have a marine command.
“We have made seizures of 5,555 tonnes of illicit drugs equivalent of 200 trailers. The agency seized 1.3 billion pills of Tramadol and 4.4 million bottles of Codeine between January 2024 and June 2025.
“We also seized 1.3 billion tablets of opium also known as tramadol. A pill of Taramadol is now N1000. The street value of one billion pills can be close to one trillion naira.
“Imagine the kind of weapons terrorist or bandits can buy with that amount of money or imagine one billion pills of tramadol in circulation. Also,we arrested 2000 drug traffickers, convicted 8,682 and rehabilitated over 24,000.
“We also go on advocacy to motor parks, schools, churches, mosques, markets, etc to raise awareness about dangers of drugs and substance abuse. All these was possible with support from Tinubu.”
On counselling and rehabilitation, the NDLEA boss explained that Tinubu had approved the building of seven rehabilitation centres, in addition to the existing 30, for the agency.
He said: “This means every state in the country will have one. Also, the President has approved one modern rehabilitation centre for each geopolitical zones of the country and we hope to start this year.”
Marwa said that the Renewed Hope Agenda of the president was fully on track and would help to address the issues of drug and substance abuse.
“This is because, it is packed with programmes and policies that will address idleness, poverty and unemployment.
“We also want to commend the governments of Kwara and Kaduna for their proactive and pragmatic efforts in addressing drug and substance abuse in their states. We want other states to follow suit.
“Also, families should not wait for Tinubu to solve all the problems of drug abuse and NDLEA, hold your societies and it starts with parenting, and from the family.
“We want drug and substance abuse to be included in the curriculum of primary schools in the country. Communities, traditional rulers, Churches and Mosques should get involved in the fight against drug abuse,” Persecondnews quotes the NDLEA boss as saying.
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