The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, is the agency in Nigeria charged with eliminating the use, growing, manufacturing, selling, exporting, and trafficking of hard drugs. The agency was established by Decree Number 48 of January 1990. The NDLEA has offices at all international airports, seaports and border crossing in Nigeria. It targets the leaders of organizations dealing in narcotics and money laundering. Its head office is located in Ikoyi, Lagos.
The NDLEA describes illicit drugs as “alien” to Nigeria, claiming that cannabis, now locally grown in many parts of the country, was introduced to the country by foreigners. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, rates Nigeria as one of the largest cannabis growers in Africa, with over 8% of the population abusing cannabis. Annual cannabis seizures increased from 126 metric tons in 2005 to 410 metric tons in 2017.
The agency believes that the South West zone of Nigeria is one of the main centers of illicit drug production in the country. In particular, Edo State has the highest rate of seizure of cannabis in the country. In January 2017, the NDLEA publicly burned 5,605 kilograms of drugs seized from traffickers in the historic town of Badagry, Lagos. The bonfire included 376 kilograms of cocaine, 71kilograms of heroin and 5,157 tons of cannabis.
The US has donated full body scanning machines to the NDLEA for the Lagos, Kano, Abuja and Port Harcourt international airports and has provided security training and orientation to airport officers. The machines have proved effective in catching smugglers and couriers taking cocaine from Latin America to Europe through Nigeria. The NDLEA officials regularly arrest air travelers, some of who later excrete various sizes of wraps of cocaine, especially at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos. The agency has been acclaimed around the world for its contribution in reducing the volume of narcotics trafficked in and through Nigeria.