Marwa orders new operational guidelines to protect NDLEA operatives on duty
By Nnamdi Okosieme
The Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency(NDLEA), Gen. Mohammed Buba Marwa(rtd), has ordered new operational guidelines to protect the agency’s operatives on duty.
Gen Marwa directed an immediate switch to the new guidelines that will make officers and men of the agency well positioned to defend themselves adequately in the course of carrying out their duties.
He again warned that henceforth any obstruction or attack on NDLEA operatives in line of duty by suspects or their supporters would receive commensurate response.
Gen. Marwa’s directive, issued on Wednesday, came in the wake of an attack on the agency’s operatives by members of a drugs cartel in Jalingo, capital of Taraba State.
The attack, which left seven NDLEA officers with differing degrees of injuries, happened at the Nukai Market along the Wukai-Jalingo Road as NDLEA operatives attempted to arrest a drug kingpin, who is the leader of a notorious cartel operating in the area.
NDLEA officers had on Tuesday, March 8, acting on credible intelligence, swooped on the hideout of the cartel in search of its leader, Micha Godwin and evacuate illicit substances in his warehouse.
Soon after the arrest of Micha, miscreants mobilised from the community to attack the officers and vehicles with dangerous weapons.
A reinforcement from the state Command of the Agency and other security agencies was able to move in to rescue the operatives from the scene of attack. Seven NDLEA operatives were injured and their vehicle damaged.
Speaking from custody, Micha denied instigating the attack on the NDLEA operatives:
“What happened today is bad because this is the second time I have been arrested and brought here but the first arrest was not like this. I don’t know who invited the boys who attacked the NDLEA officers”
The attack on NDLEA operatives in Jalingo is the latest in the series of attacks on operatives of the anti-narcotics agency. Last week criminals in Lagos attacked operatives of the agency as they arrested a well known drug baron on Lagos Island.
