An official of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Mr Emmanuel Ogbumgbada, has said that those who commit violent crimes are on drugs which help them to commit the crimes.
Ogbumgbada who is of the Rivers State Command of NDLEA stated this at a one-day sensitization programme on “Communicating Government Policies, Programmes and Activities” which held in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State on Thursday organized by National Orientation Agency.
The NDLEA official said: “You cannot do these violent activities without taking drugs. No way! Check out when you have an issue with somebody and then you are fighting and when you hit somebody and you see blood, you may be scared and say ‘Ha, let me not kill this person’, but when somebody is on drugs, he does not care, he will use knife and behead somebody and he’s to behead more”.
He said NDLEA came into operation in 1990 to primarily remove dangerous drugs from circulation by arresting drug dealers and reduce demand for and consumption of dangerous drugs in society.
On arresting drug dealers, he said: “When we arrest a drug dealer, we seize his exhibits, (so), we’ve removed somebody from distributing (drugs) to people and we have also removed that quantity of drugs that would have been taken to kill people”.
He said that the agency “investigates” and “prosecutes” those arrested and if they are found guilty in a court of law, they will be sent to jail saying that NDLEA also investigates assets of drug dealers.
Ogbumgbada said: “We also investigate their assets. Now for anybody that is doing drugs and we are able to link that he procured those assets from the proceeds of drug dealing, we also put in across to the court and apply for forfeiture of those assets be it houses, land, vehicles, whatever and his assets will be forfeited to the federal government”.
The NDLEA official appealed to people to collaborate with the agency to fight against the supply and consumption of dangerous drugs in the country.
