Category: Opinion

By Sebastine Chukwuebuka Okafor, Ph.D

​Since its establishment on December 29, 1989, by Decree No. 48 of 1989 (now the NDLEA Act), the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency began full operations in January 1990.

​Prior to this, Nigeria was experiencing a sharp increase in drug trafficking and substance abuse that threatened to turn the country into a major transit hub for international drug cartels, severely damaging its global reputation. The need to meet the country’s obligations toward curbing illicit narcotics under international frameworks—including the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances—became paramount.

​Under the act, the core functions of the NDLEA include combating the cultivation, manufacture, sale, and trafficking of illegal drugs; the arrest and prosecution of drug offenders; the seizure and destruction of illicit substances; public education on the dangers of drug abuse; and collaboration with international law enforcement agencies to dismantle transnational syndicates.

​Over the years, the agency has recorded remarkable successes. It has intercepted several tonnes of cocaine, heroin, cannabis, methamphetamine, tramadol, and other dangerous synthetic drugs at international airports, seaports, and land borders. Thousands of suspected drug traffickers have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted by competent courts across the country. Illegal cannabis plantations have been discovered and destroyed in several states, while the agency continues to partner with international organizations to prevent Nigeria from being exploited as a transit corridor.

​The introduction of the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) campaign has also bolstered awareness among young people, students, and local communities regarding the dangers of substance abuse. Through counseling and rehabilitation programs, numerous individuals battling addiction have received support to rebuild their lives.

​Despite these achievements, deep concern remains at the grassroots level, where drug abuse has become a daily occurrence. In many communities, illicit drugs are openly sold on streets, in neighborhoods, and at notorious local joints, yet the presence of the NDLEA is rarely felt. Unlike the military or police, which often establish forward operational bases in flashpoints facing serious security challenges, the NDLEA rarely maintains a sustained operational footprint in areas notorious for retail drug distribution. Most often, the agency executes sporadic raids and withdraws, allowing cartels and dealers to reclaim the streets almost immediately.

​Another structural challenge is the severe shortage of personnel. Considering Nigeria’s vast population and expanding narcotics market, the agency’s workforce is insufficient to effectively monitor every local government area. This human capital deficit directly impairs localized intelligence gathering, counter-narcotics surveillance, and rapid responses to drug-related distress calls.

​Public engagement also remains constrained. Compared to other law enforcement organizations, the NDLEA rarely holds regular media briefings, community town halls, or collaborative sessions with traditional rulers, youth groups, and market associations. Consequently, many citizens remain disconnected from the agency’s strategic goals, and a significant portion of the populace does not know how to contact or locate the nearest NDLEA command.

​Furthermore, there is a widespread perception that enforcement efforts prioritize high-profile international traffickers, while retail drug networks operating openly within neighborhoods are left to thrive. Since the youth primarily access narcotics through these local distribution networks, a strategic shift toward community-level enforcement is critical to curbing addiction before it feeds organized transnational trafficking.

​As Nigeria navigates this growing public health crisis, there is an urgent need to strengthen the NDLEA through aggressive recruitment, expanded funding, modern logistics, and community-oriented policing models. Establishing permanent operational outposts in high-risk communities, scaling up public enlightenment campaigns, and institutionalizing partnerships with local leadership will significantly optimize the agency’s operational efficacy.

​Ultimately, the war against drugs cannot be won by the NDLEA in isolation. It demands the active participation of families, academic institutions, religious bodies, community leaders, and the media. With institutionalized grassroots engagement and sustained state funding, the agency can transition into a more visible, accessible, and formidable force capable of protecting Nigerian communities from the devastating impact of illicit drugs.

Last week, I came across an account on X, formerly known as Twitter, the haunting account by one Elder Oyin Zubair about Owa-Onire, a community once known for its celebrated waterfall but now reduced to silence and abandonment. His telling was not merely reportage; it read like an elegy for a place emptied of itself. What lingered was not only the fact of depopulation, but the image at its centre: a town that had become, in effect, a one-man village.

That account stayed with me because it illuminated, with unusual clarity, a reality that official language often fails to capture. There are moments in the life of a country when a single image says more than official briefings and ministerial speeches combined. Owa-Onire offers one such image. A whole town emptied of life. A man living by himself among abandoned homes. Churches without worshippers. Mosques with silent muezzins. Streets walked by one man because everyone else has fled. Security operatives arrive and discover that the place they came to protect has already ceased to exist in any meaningful civic sense. And it is not an isolated tragedy.

As The Guardian reported two years ago, “Most traditional rulers in Ifelodun Local Government of Kwara State have fled their communities for fear of being kidnapped by gunmen. The Guardian newspaper gathered that some communities in the local government have turned into ghost towns as residents have fled to safer areas outside the council and the state. Kidnappers in the area now address letters to the monarchs, informing them of when they would strike in their domain”.

That image ought to unsettle every Nigerian.

When officers drawn from the drone unit, the Mobile Police Force, and the Anti-Kidnapping Squad entered Owa-Onire as part of ongoing operations across the forest corridors of Kwara South, they encountered silence. There were no signs of ordinary life. No market activity. No communal movement. No evidence that people still regarded the place as home. Only Lekan remained.

His description of himself as “the landlord” carries a tragic irony. It is not the boast of a wealthy proprietor but the lonely designation of a man who has outlasted the social life of his community. His neighbours are gone. His king was abducted and held for months. The economy of the place he once called home has collapsed. His nearest market is elsewhere. His hometown exists only as geography.

What happened in Owa-Onire is neither accidental nor sudden. Communities do not disappear overnight. People endure hardship for long periods before abandoning their provenances. Rural Nigerians understand insecurity more intimately than security policies acknowledge. They know the sound of fear. They adjust their lives. They avoid certain roads. They avoid their farm lands. They stop travelling at dusk. They negotiate with danger until living itself becomes impossible. The story from Owa-Onire suggests precisely such a regression into the self when bandit incursions become recurrent. Kidnappings turn ordinary movements into calculated risks. The abduction of the monarch marks the decisive point of departure for the self. If the king could be taken and held in the forest for months, what protection remained for everyone else?

The ordinary people depart.

This is perhaps the most serious indictment of insecurity in Nigeria today. Death is devastating, but displacement creates another kind of wound. It empties communities gradually and normalises retreat. Citizens surrender territory without formal declaration. Villages become mere nodal points on security maps rather than places where people build lives. The reports that dozens of communities across Ifelodun and neighbouring areas have suffered similar abandonment should force national reflection. These are not isolated incidents. They represent a creeping alteration of Nigeria’s internal landscape.

Nigeria should treat this moment with greater urgency than it currently does. Security cannot remain an episodic response that appears after communities have already collapsed. The presence of armed personnel matters, but sustained territorial confidence matters more. Intelligence gathering must become local and continuous. Rural policing requires deeper integration with communities. Forest governance can no longer remain vague. State and federal authorities must clarify responsibility rather than trade blame.

The ruling class should recognise that insecurity is no longer confined to distant places that can be discussed with casual indifference. It should also recognise that empty villages alter migration patterns, strain urban centres, deepen poverty, create recruitment grounds for criminal networks, and weaken social cohesion. When these conditions persist, decline rarely announces itself with spectacle. Countries seldom collapse in dramatic scenes; they weaken through quiet accumulations that become normal enough to ignore.

A town without people should never become ordinary.

The details that linger most from Owa-Onire are not the deployment of one hundred security personnel, nor the donation of ten thousand naira to a solitary resident, it is Lekan’s account as told by Elder Oyin Zubair that unknown people entered the community during the night, and by morning nothing appeared different because there was almost nothing left to take. That sentence captures something larger than one deserted settlement. It describes a country confronting danger while behaving as though time remains abundant. Nigeria is playing with fire while sitting on its palms. It cannot continue losing communities, and normalising abandonment without eventually confronting consequences that exceed security language. Territorial presence means little when people no longer believe they can inhabit their provenances safely.

Owa-Onire should not become another passing headline.

It should become a dire warning.

By Uche Anichukwu

July 17, 2021 is forever etched in my heart. It was the day my first son, who is also my second child, graduated from primary school. I was reeling in pains from the burns I suffered during a domestic fire incident. My legs, wrapped in bandage, were hurting badly.

The Igbo often seem to have a fitting folklore for every situation. There is one about the woodpecker, who boasted that he would cut down Iroko trees to supply firewood for his mother’s funeral ceremony. But when the sad incident happened, the woodpecker was impaired by a large abscess on his beak. That was going to be my case.

I was particularly emotional about it because my son was the valedictorian. We were both sad that I could not be there for him. I hugged him tightly, encouraged and prayed for him.

With everyone gone, it was just me and an empty house. The void was filled by a rush of memory: his first cry as I paced anxiously outside the labour room, his first day in school, and the long journey to his graduation. I felt a sudden surge of strength and made up my mind to risk it. I called the driver to come back home and take me to the event.

The gratitude and joy in my son’s eyes was evident as he waved at me. I smiled and waved back. Despite the excruciating pain I felt, I put up a happy face throughout the ceremony and posed for a few photographs with my family. Several guests congratulated us and many admired my three-piece ceremonial suit. Little did they know that beneath the joyful face and beautiful clothes were bleeding wounds and excruciating pains. I also knew that my doctor would be mad at me for venturing out and for putting on those pairs of trousers and shoes. But all those did not matter to me – what mattered was my son’s happiness.

But guess what? Physical wounds are probably the least of the brunt that men bear. Fatherhood is a great honour. It is a joyful experience and something everyone wishes to experience even in their next life. Yet, it comes with its own realities also worth reflecting on during the Father’s Day celebration.

Even the Bible in Job 14:1 declares that “Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.” Therefore, the title, “Men and things are Doing,” is a loose translation (a transliterations actually) of a popular Igbo expression, “Nwoke na ihe na-eme.” It captures the silent struggles of men who bear the weight of their families, friends and relatives.

In our African setting, in the absence of any social welfare scheme, a man begins to bear burdens once he earns his first pay. It is not bad in itself. We have all benefitted from such it.

Furthermore, once a man seeks a bride, he becomes automatically ripe as a provider for his wife and children: food, shelter, clothing, school fees, medical bills, just to name a few. He also becomes ripe for in-laws and the responsibilities that come with it. If grace smiles on you as a man, you will have enough resources to shoulder the responsibilities effortlessly. Otherwise, it becomes an endless cycle of hustle and pondering from one meal to the other and from one school fees to the other. Like Sisyphus, you are likely going to continue with the cycle until old age gradually creeps in – if you are lucky to live to old age.

My child, the valedictorian, voiced a rather unsettling question when he was in primary four or so. “Daddy, why do men die earlier?” he had asked, sitting beside me. I was lost, not sure what may have prompted the question. He narrated his observations in school and church.
I could also relate. My father, the late Rabbi Gabriel Anichukwu, teacher and headmaster par excellence, died shortly after my first year in the university. As I stood with my wife facing the congregation on my wedding day, I saw my former boss and number three man in the country at the time, His Excellency, Senator Ken Nnamani, GCON, and a good number of senators. I saw the famed Chief C.C Onoh, former governor of old Anambra State, who honoured us with his presence, having been informed of my wedding that Saturday morning by Barr. Nana Ogbodo. I saw other dignitaries and captains of industry. But my father was conspicuously missing in the congregation. Same applied to my father-in-law. A tear or two dropped on my shoe.

I explained to my son the much his young mind could comprehend, but assured him that his daddy would be there for him till old age, by God’s grace.

Meanwhile, as you age, you discover, as Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses does, that you are no longer that strength “That ever with a frolic welcome took/ The thunder and the sunshine.” If you are lucky, you will have a family that still treasures your sacrifices and relatives that still remember your contributions to their lives. Otherwise, you are left to rot away as though you were just one foolish, useless, and irresponsible man throughout your life.

Several months ago, I visited a much senior friend. I found just him alone with his driver, who now works as driver, cook, and house manager. A home that had once bustled with life and laughter had become empty and cold. I asked about madam. He retorted, “Uche, when last did I see her? If she is not in Europe today, she is in America tomorrow seeing her children and grandchildren.” Instructively, both have always got along well and their bond was never in doubt. So, the absence could not be intentional.

The tale referenced is not an exception. It is now very common to visit a former rich or influential man living all by himself in a desolate mansion. Children are all abroad or elsewhere. The wife moves from one location to the other. In most cases, “Omugwo” (the Igbo customary practice where a mother travels to nurse her daughter and new grandchild), which typically should not last more than three months, turns into years of “wifelessness” and solitude for the man. You have just a house help or steward, who manages to cook your meals and administer your drugs for age-related illnesses like hypertension, arthritis, dementia, etc.

Instructively again, men’s health easily fails them as they grow older because of both mental and physical exertion. Years spent sacrificing for others and taking little care of their health, often come home to roost. Before they know what is happening to their bodies, it is already too late. Their days are already numbered.

And God help you if you are married to someone who would rather inundate your children with all your real and imagined wrongdoings, than highlight your sacrifices. In your sunset, when your strength has failed you, you would begin to wonder if you had not spent your prime raising household enemies. You are abandoned to face death in installments. Just carefully observe your neighbourhood.

It is probably for these reasons that King Solomon wonders in Ecclesiastes 1:3, “What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?”

But should men, therefore, shy away from their responsibilities? Never! What then should a man do? The answer lies in Ecclesiastes 2:24 where King Solomon admonishes men: “There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.”

As a man, learn to take care of your physical and mental health. Make yourself happy, responsibly. Cut your coat according to your cloth. Importantly, invest in your retirement. And frankly, children should never be the sole retirement hope, for they also have their own (rat) race to run.

Some discussions quickly remind you that your family cannot abandon you if you treated them well in your prime. That is not an absolute truth; for many fathers have been abandoned in spite of all their sacrifices. Again, scan your neighbourhood. Besides, why rely on what is controlled by another person for something as critical as your wellbeing in old age? An Igbo adage reminds us that money in another’s pocket is always very far.

As I conclude, I salute my late father, a gentleman and cerebral headmaster. One of his teachers told me that they usually called him “Mr. Duty is Duty” behind him because of his diligence and work ethic. He and mom taught us hard work and diligence by example. May their souls continue to rest in peace. Amen!

Happy Father’s Day to my fellow fathers.

Mazi Anichukwu is a media consultant and public affairs analyst.

By Abdul Mahmud

Governments often lionise those they choose, but history reserves its own place for those it recognises as true heroes. For anyone who followed the social and political movements of the 1980s and 1990s, and the long struggle for the revalidation of June 12, two names remain impossible to ignore: Glory Kilanko and Chom Bagu, who earned the epithet General during the halcyon years of the June 12 struggles. There are names that enter public records through appointments, titles, and ceremonial recognition. There are others that survive because they were written into difficult moments when fear carried official authority and resistance carried consequences. June 12 belongs to the latter category.

Each year, as speeches are delivered and honours lists are announced, the country performs remembrance in a language that increasingly favours visibility over sacrifice. Public memory becomes selective, and selective memory eventually transforms political history into a comfortable narrative in which victory appears detached from struggle.

That distortion deserves correction.

The annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election was not merely a constitutional rupture. It was experienced as a direct assault on democratic possibility by a generation that had spent years confronting military rule through student organising, labour mobilisation, and civic agitation. What followed was neither spontaneous outrage nor abstract idealism. Resistance had to be organised, coordinated, and sustained.

One of the decisive moments came in mid-July of that year at the residence of Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti at 8, Imaria Street, Anthony Village, Lagos, where activists gathered to determine the course of organised resistance. Out of that meeting emerged the Campaign for Democracy as the principal vehicle through which opposition to annulment acquired structure, direction, and public expression. Instructions were clear. Resistance cells were to hold Lagos. Every axis had its assignment.

As activists prepared to leave, Beko turned his attention to the Lagos Island group and gave a specific directive. The embassies had to feel the reality of public anger and understand that the annulment had consequences beyond government communiqués and diplomatic briefings.

Indeed, there was work to do.

Fabian Okoye, Odion Akhaine, Omano Edigheji, Uche Onyeagocha and yours sincerely moved into action. I reached out to an old comrade from the University of Jos, Yakub Aromashodun, a son of Lagos Island, whose knowledge of the terrain became invaluable in navigating its streets, passages and strategic points. What followed remains among the defining memories of that period.

At Apongbon, activists confronted combined police and military resistance in one of the fiercest engagements of the June 12 struggle. The objective was political and geographical at once. Carter Bridge had to be held down. Victoria Island had to be separated from the rest of the city through strategic occupation of access routes. The bridge approaching Bonny Camp, home to one of the country’s most famous military barracks, became contested ground. The overhead bridge before the Nigerian Law School formed part of that theatre of resistance.

Those encounters were not symbolic exercises.

People faced batons, arrests, bullets, detention, death, and uncertainty with no assurance that history would remember their names.

Across Lagos, others opened different fronts of resistance. Activists such as Baba Aye, Wale Adeoye, John Odah, Uzo Nwaogbe, Ogaga Ifowodo, Lanre Ehonwa, the late Olaitan Oyerinde, the late Biodun Ogunade, Omoyele Sowore and Segun Mayegun occupied their own spaces within that movement and contributed to sustaining pressure at a time when silence offered greater personal comfort. Beyond Lagos, the struggle acquired national expression through figures, including Nasiru Kura, Lukman Salihu, Kingsley Chinda, Teejay Yusuf, Chijioke Uwasomba, HRM Chris Akani, Yomi Gidado, Jiti Ogunye, Ola Doifie, Edward Daudu, Louis Alozie SAN, the late Wisdom Durueke, and the late Chris Abashi among many others whose contributions deserve careful historical recovery. Many of these individuals emerged from the culture of struggle cultivated within the National Association of Nigerian Students, an organisation that, during those years, served as one of the principal organisations of democratic engagement and political courage.

Their stories remain largely absent from official recognition.

This omission matters because honours are never merely decorative. They are statements about what a nation values and whom it chooses to remember. They influence public understanding of how democratic gains were secured and whose labour made present freedoms possible. A country that commemorates June 12 while overlooking many of those who carried resistance into the streets risks reducing history into ceremony. Recognition cannot restore youth spent in struggle. It cannot return years consumed by detention, exile, or interrupted ambitions. However, it can restore honesty to national memory.

The names that appear on honours lists deserve scrutiny, not from resentment but from the belief that commemoration ought to meet the standards of historical seriousness. Numerous figures who stood at the barricades remain alive, while others who bore the weight of resistance continue to exist beyond official remembrance. Some whose sacrifices helped widen democratic space now watch later beneficiaries of that freedom occupy the centre of public recognition. History has a way of correcting omissions, though often more slowly than justice permits. June 12 was built through human courage and struggle. Those who shaped it should not be reduced to footnotes, nor should their place in national memory depend on political convenience.

Nigeria owes them remembrance.

A viral video can sometimes reveal what a thousand official statements cannot. A few days ago, the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, visited Oriire in Oyo State to sympathise with families whose children remain in captivity after the abduction of pupils and staff of three schools in the community. The video that emerged from the visit which has refused to leave the mind showed an elderly man, standing among others, his face contorted by grief, weeping profusely, and with tears flowing freely. The man was Pa. Alamu, husband of Mrs. Rachael Alamu, the vice principal of Esiele Community Grammar School, whose desperate voice had reached our country through a video recorded in captivity. In that video, Mrs. Alamu pleaded for her life and the lives of the children snatched from Baptist Nursery and Primary School and the Local Authority Primary, Ahoro-Esinele. Her pleas were stripped bare of rhetorical pretence. She spoke as a mother trapped in the forest with frightened children, exposed to the elements and uncertain of what the next hour might bring.

Her husband watched from home. He could not protect her. He could not rescue the children. He could only wait, like many Nigerians who have since taken to the streets to demand that this government does something drastic and urgent. The video captured what waiting does to the human spirit. Of course, there are also many who have become accustomed to reading reports of kidnappings, and who scan headlines, exchange a few messages and move on without expressing outrage.

Tears resist such I-Don’t-Care attitude.

The tears of Pa. Alamu brought the tragedy into sharp focus. They reminded us that every kidnapping creates circles of suffering extending far beyond those held captive. Behind every victim is a family caught between hope and despair. There are husbands who stare endlessly at telephones, praying for news. There are wives who struggle to answer questions from her children. There are parents and grandparents who sit silently through the night, fearing the arrival of devastating information. For eighteen days, the families of these schoolchildren have lived in that state of torment.

Eighteen days of torment.

For a child, two weeks in captivity can feel like an eternity. A child does not measure time as adults do. Each day carries its own fears, discomforts, and uncertainties. The forest offers no classroom, no playground, and no familiar embrace. It offers only fear. One can only imagine what these children have witnessed and endured. Our country reveals much about itself through the value it places on the safety of its children. When schoolchildren are taken from their schools and transported into captivity, the injury extends beyond the immediate victims. It strikes at the confidence of every parent who sends a child to school, weakens faith in public authority, and creates anxiety in communities far removed from the scene of the crime. Education and learning cannot flourish where fear becomes a constant companion.

Across many parts of our country, parents increasingly calculate risks that previous generations never contemplated. They ask whether the roads to schools are safe. They wonder whether boarding facilities can be protected. They question whether governments at all levels possess the capacity to respond effectively when danger arrives. These are painful questions because education has long been presented as the pathway to opportunity. Families make enormous sacrifices to educate their children. Many deny themselves basic comforts to pay school fees. They do so because they believe the classroom offers a better future. When children are abducted from that space, the social contract suffers a profound rupture.

The anguish visible on Pa. Alamu’s face should also provoke reflection about the emotional cost of insecurity. Public discussions often focus on operational responses, security deployment and tactical considerations. Those matters are important. Human suffering deserves equal attention. What support exists for families navigating such trauma? How do elderly parents cope with prolonged uncertainty? What assistance is available to children who eventually return from captivity, carrying sad memories that may remain with them for years?

These questions deserve serious engagement.

Our country has spent years confronting kidnapping in its various forms. Villages have virtually been emptied out. Farmers have abandoned farm lands. A generation is growing up in an environment where stories of abduction have become distressingly familiar. But familiarity should never breed acceptance. Every prolonged captivity carries consequences that may not immediately appear in official reports. Trust erodes. Anxiety deepens. The country retreats into fear. Citizens begin to organise their lives around fear. That is a heavy burden for any country to carry.

The video from Oriire, viewed as more than a moment of personal grief, reflects a collective failure that demands urgent attention. The tears of Pa. Alamu symbolise the fears of countless families scattered across our country. His sorrow not only speaks to parents who lie awake waiting for children travelling on dangerous roads, it also speaks to families whose loved ones remain missing and to communities that feel exposed and forgotten.

Pa. Alamu did not need to deliver a speech. His tears conveyed enough. They told the story of a husband separated from his wife. They told the story of children who should be at home with their families. They told the story of a country struggling to guarantee one of the most basic responsibilities of governance: the protection of life. Governor Makinde’s visit offered comfort and solidarity to grieving families. Such gestures matter. Human beings need reassurance that they have not been abandoned. Compassion from public officials carries value during moments of crisis. Families, however, need more than sympathy. They need results. They need to see their loved ones returned safely. They need confidence that future tragedies can be prevented. They need evidence that the security of schoolchildren remains an overriding national priority.

Our country should never become comfortable with scenes of children and their teachers disappearing into the dark of the forest. An elderly man should not have to weep publicly while his wife and schoolchildren remain captive. A teacher should not be forced to plead for the lives of children through videos recorded under duress. Childhood should not be interrupted by terror. As the days pass, the image from Oriire remains. It endures because it strips away political arguments and exposes the simple truth: an old man wept. He wept for his wife. He wept for the children. He wept for a country that constantly sleepwalks into tragedies of unimaginable proportions.

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