A civil society organisation (CSO), the Society for Drug Abuse Enlightenment and Control (SODAEC), has expressed concern over the absence of capital funding for the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in the 2025 budget, saying the agency requires adequate resources to address drug and narcotics abuse in the country.
In a statement issued on Wednesday by its Executive Director, Barrister Ahmad Musa Umar, the group described the development as more than a budgetary oversight, alleging that it undermines a critical national institution.
The organisation said it was shocked by disclosures from the National Assembly Joint Committee on Drugs and Narcotics indicating that no capital funds were allocated to the agency last year.
“The disclosure that zero capital funds were released to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in 2025 is not merely a budgetary oversight; it is a calculated abandonment of Nigeria’s most critical line of defense against the twin plagues of narcotics and insecurity.
“While the NDLEA, under the visionary leadership of Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), records earth-shattering weekly interdictions—seizing narcotics valued at over ₦550 billion and destroying 640 hectares of illicit arm,the Federal Government has responded by starving the agency of the oxygen it needs to survive.
“SODAEC also finds it preposterous that an agency serving a population of over 200 million is expected to function with fewer than 14,000 personnel.
“To expect results from a state command operating with only three vehicles is not just unrealistic; it is an insult to the officers putting their lives on the line.
“The NDLEA alone performs the combined functions of other security agencies, It conducts high-level intelligence gathering, executes complex surveillance, carries out paramilitary arrests, and handles rigorous prosecution.
“While other agencies focus on specific niches of crime, the NDLEA protects the Security, Economic, and Sociopolitical interests of Nigeria simultaneously. Drug money fuels the banditry and terrorism that the DSS fights; drug-related corruption undermines the economy the EFCC monitors.
“If the NDLEA is the shield against 50% of our national insecurity, why is it treated as a peripheral parastatal? It is a travesty that this agency receives more tangible support from the UNODC and international partners than from the very government it serves.”
The group called for an inquiry into why capital releases were withheld in 2025 despite what it described as an escalating drug epidemic. It also urged authorities to initiate an urgent recruitment drive aimed at increasing the agency’s workforce to meet global policing ratios.