Drugs seized by NDLEA


The German government has donated two Toyota Hiace buses to the Canine Unit of  the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA) as a way of  supporting  the  agency in the fight against illicit drug trafficking in the country. The vehicles are to facilitate the easy movement of the agency’s dogs to operational areas.
 
The German Consul General, Mr. Walter Von Den Driesch,  while making the presentation at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Command office in Lagos   said that the donation was pertinent to enable the NDLEA  maximise the use of the sniffer dogs.

“In 2009, BKA Germany organised a sniffer dog handling training course for 3 NDLEA officers which took place from 2nd November until 19th January in Dresden/Saxony, Germany. The twelve weeks course covered building of trust between animals and people as well as ability and capacity to handle sniffer dogs in complex police situations.  After the successful completion of the training, the officers returned to Nigeria with 4 sniffer dogs (Belgian Shepherd  dogs) with each dog valued at between 1,500 and 1,800 Euro. These vehicles are to enable the NDLEA convey the dogs to their operational areas” Walter stated.

He also pledged to assist the NDLEA in capacity building to address the drug problem.

NDLEA CEO, Ahmadu Giade while receiving the vehicles thanked the German government for the kind gesture and promised to judiciously utilise the vehicles.  “On behalf of the management of the agency and indeed the Government of Nigeria, I sincerely appreciate this donation and kind gesture to the agency. In line with our tradition of commitment and dedication, these operational
vehicles will be utilized strictly for the purpose for which they were given. The effective use of these vehicles will make it difficult for the merchants of death to smuggle drugs into the country undetected as the canines can now be moved around our operational bases more conveniently” Giade stated.

The NDLEA boss called on governments, organisations and individuals to assist the Agency.

In his words, “It is no longer debatable that the challenges of drug control are quite enormous and it becomes even more compounded when our counterparts and other donor organisations fail to come to our assistance at our critical moments. Globally, it is known and accepted that drug control is a shared responsibility as no country can go it alone. We would be doing great
service to humanity if we join hands to counter the activities of the merchants of death”.

Giade also promised that the capacity of the dogs will be optimised now that they could easily be moved around.
“The capacity of our Department to confront operational issues such as drug supply reduction through interdiction activities will be greatly enhanced if our partners come to our assistance in terms of equipment and capacity building. The difference in our airport operations became visible even to the greatest pessimists when the United States Government supported our efforts with the donation of modern scanning machines” the NDLEA boss stressed.

The dogs and the vehicles are not enough, because we hope to use them at other airports in the country as well as in other neighbouring countries of West Africa whenever the need arises.
“On invitation, we have taken the dogs on assignment in other countries and we hope to expand such operations as the German Government has promised to foot the bill of joint training programmes in the region” Giade stated.

The NDLEA officers carried out a field demonstration of how the dogs detect drugs and in turn rewarded by their handlers who give them toys and play with them.