NDLEA arrests 412 suspects in A/Ibom

By Isaac Job, Uyo

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested 412 suspects for illegal possession of hard drugs in the last one year in Akwa Ibom state.

Addressing a press conference in Uyo on activities of the agency to mark the 2019 International Year against Drug Abuse and Trafficking, the state Commander of NDLEA, Mohammed Sokoto confirmed that the suspects were apprehended between 2018 and 2019.

Sokoto explained that during the period under review, the command seized a total of 322.5kg of drugs and secured 20 convictions, disclosing that out of the total number of suspects apprehended, 56 were females and 356 were males while the command rehabilitated 10 persons and integrated them back into the society within the period under review.

Sokoto said that the number of persons involved in drug abuse keeps increasing in the state due to peer pressure and warned parents to closely monitor the type of company their children and wards keep.

“The effects of drug abuse are devastating as drugs have social, physical and psychological consequences on the individual user, the immediate family and general society.

“The social effects are social unrest, political violence, disruption of election process, dropping out of school, disobedience to parents and authorities, cultism, rape, armed robbery, burglary and theft. The psychological problems include injury to the brain, psychomotor disorder leading to psychosis and mental disorder among others,” Sokoto said.

Sokoto assured that the command would continue in its sensitisation exercise to secondary schools in the state to inform them early on the consequences of drug abuse.

He said that the command would have achieved more but due to some challenges confronting the agency in the state, such as inadequate monitoring vehicles and other logistics.

“The above successes were not without challenges. Perhaps, the greatest challenge is inadequate logistics both material and financial resources to optimize our operational capacity. The command has only one serviceable vehicle to transverse the 31 local government areas of the state,” he stated and appealed to Gov. Udom Emmanuel to assist the command with surveillance vehicles for operational efficiency.