Assessing Nigeria’s drug control policy, 1994–2000

Abstract

Drugs became a public issue in Nigeria by the 1960s with discoveries of cannabis farms in the country, arrests of Nigerian cannabis traffickers abroad, and reports of psychological disorders suspected to be associated with cannabis use. However, it was not until the early 1980s that the problem of drug trafficking had become a major social issue with the potential of disrupting international relations and social stability. This review of Nigeria’s drug policy uses data from a variety of sources—published documents, interviews with key informants, periodical literature—to show that the country has traditionally relied on extreme punitive measures to curb supply and discourage demand. Throughout most of the 1990s, in response to U.S. certification demands, these measures were applied in a sustained drug war during which civil liberties were often abused. The paper argues that international collaboration in a reactive drug policy that relies on extreme measures may only succeed in temporarily suppressing the problem of trafficking and use. On the contrary, what Nigeria needs at the moment is a realistic policy that seeks to minimise the harm caused by different drugs; a policy that manages to combine the necessity of curbing supply with a humane commitment to addressing the problems associated with their use.

Full text

International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26
Assessing Nigeria’s drug control policy, 1994–2000
Isidore S. Obot∗
Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA), P.O. Box 10331, Jos, Nigeria
Received 6 February 2003; received in revised form 23 June 2003; accepted 25 June 2003
Abstract
Drugs became a public issue in Nigeria by the 1960s with discoveries of cannabis farms in the country, arrests of Nigerian cannabis
traffickers abroad, and reports of psychological disorders suspected to be associated with cannabis use. However, it was not until the early
1980s that the problem of drug trafficking had become a major social issue with the potential of disrupting international relations and social
stability. This review of Nigeria’s drug policy uses data from a variety of sources—published documents, interviews with key informants,
periodical literature—to show that the country has traditionally relied on extreme punitive measures to curb supply and discourage demand.
Throughout most of the 1990s, in response to U.S. certification demands, these measures were applied in a sustained drug war during which
civil liberties were often abused. The paper argues that international collaboration in a reactive drug policy that relies on extreme measures
may only succeed in temporarily suppressing the problem of trafficking and use. On the contrary, what Nigeria needs at the moment is a
realistic policy that seeks to minimise the harm caused by different drugs; a policy that manages to combine the necessity of curbing supply
with a humane commitment to addressing the problems associated with their use.
© 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Drug policy; Nigeria; Drug trafficking; Drug certification; Drug use
Introduction
Attempts to understand and control the spread of drug
problems in Nigeria have a relatively long history. Even
before independence from the British in 1960, problems
associated with drugs had attracted the attention of a few
researchers. For example, in probably the first paper to ad-
dress the issue of alcohol and drug addiction in the country,
Lambo (1960) reviewed data from admission files in psy-
chiatric clinics in western Nigeria for the period from 1954
to 1958. Among the many cases of schizophrenia, anxiety
states, and other disorders he saw during the period of the
study, there were 18 cases of drug addiction and 16 cases
of ‘chronic alcoholism’.
A few years after independence, more in-depth analyses
of data from psychiatric hospitals and other sources were
published. One of these studies reported an increase in
the number of arrests for drug (mostly cannabis) traffick-
ing in the country (Asuni, 1964). According to the study,
“cannabis was introduced to Nigeria and other parts of West
∗Present address: Department of Mental Health and Substance Depen-
dence, World Health Organization, 20 Avenue Appia, Ch-1211 Geneva
27, Switzerland.
E-mail address: isobot@hotmail.com (I.S. Obot).
Africa during and after the second World War by soldiers
returning from the Middle East and the Far East, and North
Africa, and also by sailors” (p. 18). Once it was introduced
into the country, cannabis (or Indian hemp, as it is known
in the country) found a very habitable home. The plant
grows easily in the tropical climate of Nigeria and, though
production in large commercial quantities is concentrated
in a few parts of the country, it is planted in small plots and
on large farmlands in many parts.
Before long, cannabis was being exported to Western
countries by Nigerians as local production increased. Ac-
cording to Lambo (1965), many West Africans were pros-
ecuted in the United Kingdom for trafficking in cannabis
in the early 1960s (p. 236). Within the country, in 1961
and 1962, 823 and 7152kg of cannabis, respectively, were
seized. A majority of those arrested for the cultivation of
cannabis were men who regarded cannabis as a cash crop
‘with the greatest remuneration’. Thus, the roots of drug
trafficking and abuse experienced in the country today go
back many years.
Trafficking in cocaine and heroin
Just as soldiers returning from Asia introduced cannabis
into Nigeria, the beginning of heroin trafficking by Nigeri-
0955-3959/$ – see front matter © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0955-3959(03)00110-5

18 I.S. Obot/International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26
ans has been attributed to the involvement of military per-
sonnel. According to a report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA), “Nigerians first became involved in
the drug trade in the early 1980s, when a group of Nigerian
naval officers, undergoing training in India, began traffick-
ing in Southwest Asian heroin” (DEA, undated, p. 1). It has
also been speculated that some of the thousands of young
Nigerians who went to the U.S. for higher education in the
1970s and early 1980s were engaged in drug trafficking. A
lot has happened since then and we have come to know more
about the role of Nigerians in the international drug trade
(Kalu & Osinbajo, 1990; Obot, 1992).
Data on the involvement of Nigerians in international
drug trafficking show that between 1979 and 1988 there
were 14,833 arrests and 4574 convictions in foreign coun-
tries (Iyamabo, 1990). Most of the arrests were made in
Britain, USA, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, and Thailand.
Back home, the first arrest for trafficking in an illicit drug
other than cannabis was in 1982 with the seizure of cocaine
weighing 1.2kg from one trafficker in the process of taking
the drug out of the country. Another single arrest was made
in 1983 and, beginning from 1984, there was a significant
increase in the arrests of cocaine and heroin traffickers and
also in the quantities of drugs seized at the international air-
ports and seaports (Oyakhilome, 1990). In 1989 alone, the
number of arrests had reached 146.
Table 1 shows the number of arrests and weights of drug
seized (in kg) for the period from 1990 to 2001 for all drugs,
as compiled by the Intelligence Unit of the National Drug
Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the omnibus organi-
sation responsible for the execution of Nigerian drug policy.
Table 2 shows the figures for cocaine and heroin only. It is
clear from the data presented in these two tables that there
was a significant jump in the number of arrests beginning
from 1995. These significant increases in arrests might have
been a reflection of increasing numbers of Nigerians en-
Table 1
Number of drug arrests and seizures of all illicit drugs by the National
Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), 1990–2001
Year Quantity of drugs
seized (kg) Total number
of arrests Sex of arrestees
Male Female
1990 1141.89 464 – –
1991 2124.54 293 – –
1992 3618.15 395 – –
1993 8957.91 458 – –
1994 20009.38 693 632 61
1995 15515.31 798 732 66
1996 19834.27 1187 1099 88
1997 17683.12 2372 2208 164
1998 18836.99 2814 2610 204
1999 18120.61 2501 2380 121
2000 272654.28 2385 2253 132
2001a257438.83 1819 1727 92
Source: National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Lagos, Intelligence
Databank.
aFigures as of 5th October.
Table 2
Quantities of heroin and cocaine seized in Nigeria, 1990–2001
Year Heroin (kg) Cocaine (kg)
1990 861.25 110.66
1991 66.82 545.39
1992 690.84 415.67
1993 283.51 1293.69
1994 91.65 90.76
1995 30.27 15.91
1996 19.38 6.16
1997 10.49 31.90
1998 5.84 9.26
1999 81.04 15.06
2000 55.10 53.95
2001 43.00 98.00a
Source: National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.
aThis figure includes the largest seizure of 60kg of cocaine in Nigeria.
gaged in drug trafficking. It could also have been the result
of more intensive law enforcement connected with changes
in leadership at the drug control agency and external pres-
sures on the Nigerian government to demonstrate a serious
commitment to its drug war. These issues will be discussed
in a later section of this paper.
Drug law and policy
The worsening situation of Nigerians’ involvement in the
international drug trade within and outside Nigeria (as shown
in Tables 1 and 2) could not be attributed to the lack of laws
to control the problem. If anything, the country can boast of
some of the most draconian laws ever applied to eradicate
drug trafficking and use. Beginning with the Indian Hemp
[Cannabis] Decree of 1966, punishment for drug offences
have generally been extreme. Under this Decree, cultivation
of cannabis attracted the death penalty or 21 years in jail, and
exportation was punishable by 10 years of imprisonment.
A stiff penalty of at least 10 years in jail was reserved for
those found smoking or in possession of the drug (Federal
Military Government, 1966). This law was amended in 1975
and less severe penalties were instituted. For example, the
death penalty was abolished and the punishment for cannabis
smoking was reduced to six months and/or a fine (Federal
Military Government, 1975).
However, to reflect the mood of the new military group
in power, there were drastic changes in Nigerian drug
laws in 1984, with the most significant feature being the
re-introduction of the death penalty. Two laws were pro-
mulgated that year. The first was an amendment of the
Indian Hemp Act (which in itself was an amendment to the
Indian Hemp Decree of 1966). Known as the Indian Hemp
(Amendment) Decree, this law repealed the 1975 Act and
brought back severe penalties for trafficking in or sale of
cannabis (Federal Military Government, 1984a).
A more significant development in drug law was the Spe-
cial Tribunal (Miscellaneous Offences) Decree. This law de-

I.S. Obot/International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26 19
creed the death penalty by firing squad for ‘dealing in, buy-
ing, selling, exposing or offering for sale or inducing any
person to buy, sell, smoke or inhale the drug known as co-
caine or other similar drug’ (Federal Military Government,
1984b). The Decree had retroactive effects. Though it was
promulgated on 6 July 1984, it was with effect from 31
December 1983, the day the government came into being
through a military coup. This was a notorious law: for the
first time in the history of Nigeria the death penalty was ap-
plied to drug offences when three young men who were ar-
rested for cocaine and heroin trafficking before the Decree
came into being were tied to drums and executed by firing
squad. This was also the last time this measure was applied.
Two years later, with the coming of a new military group,
the 1984 Decree was amended and life imprisonment was
substituted for the death penalty. This Special Tribunal (Mis-
cellaneous Offences) (Amendment) Decree of 1986 (Federal
Military Government, 1986), introduced new features into
Nigerian drug law, the most significant of which was the
provision regarding forfeiture of assets and passport.
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Decree No. 48
The most significant drug law in Nigeria has been the
NDLEA Decree of 1989, a response to the United Nations
Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances, 1988. Among many of its provi-
sions, the NDLEA Decree set up an agency of the same
name and listed the punishment for drug offences, includ-
ing the forfeiture of assets of arrested persons. In this De-
cree, trafficking in cocaine, LSD, heroin, or similar drugs
is punishable by life imprisonment, while possession or use
attracts a sentence of ‘15 years but not exceeding 25 years’.
The assets forfeiture provision of the Decree also empow-
ers the NDLEA to “immediately trace and attach all the as-
sets and properties” of an arrested person (Federal Military
Government, 1989, p. A730). Though this provision was in
line with the UN Convention, it would later become a con-
troversial feature of the drug war in Nigeria between 1994
and 1998 and widely criticised by civil society organisations
and individuals within and outside the country.
Serious criticisms were also directed towards an amend-
ment of the NDLEA Decree (Federal Military Government,
1990) which caused to be inserted in the 1989 Decree the
following statements:
(1) Any person whose journey originates from Nigeria
without being detected of carrying prohibited narcotic
drugs or psychotropic substances but is found to have im-
ported such prohibited narcotic drugs or psychotropic sub-
stances into a foreign country, notwithstanding that such
a person has been tried or convicted for nay offence of
unlawful importation or possession of such narcotic drugs
or psychotropic substances in that foreign country, shall
be guilty of an offence under this subsection.
(2) Any Nigerian citizen found guilty in any foreign
country of an offence involving narcotic drugs or psy-
chotropic substances and who thereby brings the name
of Nigeria into disrepute shall be guilty of an offence un-
der this subsection (Federal Military Government, 1990,
p. A569)
This law, which effectively imposed a ‘double jeopardy’
on Nigerians jailed for drug offences abroad, was widely
seen to be without justification and an abuse of human rights
of people who had already paid a price for their crimes.
However, the law remains in the books though it is not
clear how much it is being applied since the coming of a
democratic Federal Government in 1999.
Money Laundering Decree No. 3, 1995
Abuses were made worse by the Money Laundering De-
cree of 1995 (Federal Military Government, 1995) that gave
greater powers to the NDLEA to mount surveillance on the
bank accounts of suspects. The Decree also placed limita-
tions on cash payments, mandated banks to report deposits
of amounts beyond a certain limit, and gave powers to the
NDLEA to tap any telephone line.
It is not surprising that the implementation of Nigerian
drug laws has been trailed with charges of abuse dating
back to the 1984 Miscellaneous Offences Tribunal De-
cree, under which there were three executions. The country
has been ruled by different military administrations for
most of its 42 years of existence so all drug laws were
the products of governments that, invariably, resorted to
extra judicial measures like the Tribunal. The role of the
military in formulating drug policy also has contributed
to an atmosphere in which the control of drug problems,
whether it is abuse or trafficking, is seen from a ‘war
perspective’. One major implication of a ‘drug war’ ide-
ology has been the institutionalisation of measures that
focus on extreme forms of punishment for drug-related
crimes often involving the abuse of individual rights. The
war mentality, which emphasises law enforcement over
all other approaches to the control of drugs, was demon-
strated most poignantly in the period between 1994 and
1998.
Decertification and its consequences: 1994–1998
As the data in Table 1 seem to imply, more and more
Nigerians were being recruited as couriers in the drug trade
as the years went by. Young and old, men and women, the
unemployed and people with jobs, all of them offered them-
selves to the services of major dealers who managed to bring
in consignments of cocaine and heroin from South Amer-
ica and Southeast Asia, respectively. Using any means that
would defy detection they carried small quantities to the
USA, Europe, or wherever there is a thriving drug market.

20 I.S. Obot/International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26
As the arrests increased at air and seaports and border cross-
ings, and as they ran out of routes and tricks, many traffick-
ers left to other African countries from where they could
operate for some time without arrest (Leggett & Burton,
1999).
As far back as the early 1980s, the U.S. government was
beginning to express its unhappiness with the Nigerian gov-
ernment because of the growing role of Nigerians in exac-
erbating the drug problem in the U.S. According to U.S.
officials, not only were Nigerians bringing drugs from their
country into the U.S., those resident in the country and in
Asia were using inner-city gangs to distribute drugs in ur-
ban neighbourhoods. The U.S. DEA, asserted that at some
point in the 1990s, Nigerian traffickers controlled ‘between
70 and 90% of the market for Southeast Asian heroin’ sold in
Chicago (DEA, undated). By 1987, the Nigerian connection
with drug trafficking seemed to have been well established
and drug issues had become a regular feature of discussions
between U.S. and Nigerian officials. The American Ambas-
sador in Nigeria at the time warned that, ‘Narcotics traffick-
ing has become a serious issue in Nigeria’s relations with
the U.S., as it has with a number of other countries, detract-
ing from our ability to address other high priority concerns’
(Newswatch, 1987, p. 15).
Initial reactions of Nigerian officials were twofold. First
was a resort to veiled denial or minimisation of the role
of Nigerians. In an address at a conference on drug law
and policy in May 1990, the first head of the just estab-
lished NDLEA asserted that Nigerians, when they were
involved, only carried a few hundred grams of heroin or
cocaine in their bodies (Oyakhilome, 1990). Embedded in
this was the position, expressed more often by editorial
writers and government functionaries, that Nigeria does
not produce cocaine or heroin; it is only a transit country.
However, in the same speech, the issue of enacting a law
to punish any Nigerian who portrayed the country in bad
light outside the country was raised for the first time in
public.
A second line of response by officials, one that lasted for
many years, was to blame the other ‘victim’. In this position,
drug trafficking by Nigerians was caused by the ‘the great
appetite for drugs in the United States’ (Atta, 1990) with the
corollary that if Americans stopped needing drugs supply
would disappear. As we shall see later, this line of defence
became a favourite of later heads of the drug control agency
and editorial writers even after the U.S. wielded the big stick
by decertifying the country in 1994.
The beginning of Nigeria’s status as a pariah nation for
five years was the announcement of U.S. certification deci-
sions for 1993 that were made in early 1994. The country
was decertified for failing in its drug control efforts and se-
vere sanctions were imposed. The only other countries to
be decertified that year were Myanmar, Iran, and Syria. It
was a difficult company to keep, and probably much more
so when Afghanistan was added to the list of decertified na-
tions the following year.
The decertification process
Certification as an instrument of U.S. drug control strat-
egy dates back to 1961 with the promulgation of the For-
eign Assistance Act (FAA). Under this Act, the President
is required to submit to Congress annually a list of major
countries involved in drug production and/or drug transit. A
major country is one in which the amount of drugs produced
in one year is at least 1000ha of opium, 1000ha of coca, or
5000ha of illicit cannabis. In the case of cannabis, if such
illicit production does not affect the U.S., i.e. is consumed
locally or sold somewhere else, the country may not appear
on the list.
The criteria for determining drug transit status are not
as concrete. A country falls on the majors list if it is ‘a
significant direct source of illicit narcotic or psychotropic
drugs or other controlled substances significantly affecting
the United States; or through which are transported such
drugs or substances’ to the U.S. (Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 2000). There are
three certification options open to the President: a country
can receive full certification, denied certification, or be cer-
tified because of ‘vital national interest’. A country with full
certification has:
during the previous year ... cooperated fully with the
United States, or has taken adequate steps on its own, to
achieve full compliance with the goals and objectives of
the 1988 UN Drug Convention. (Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 2000, pp. 1–2)
This dual decertification track has two implications. One
is that it seems harder to get on the list as a producing coun-
try than as a transit country. There must be substantial and
substantiated production of a particular drug to qualify. It
is also conceivably easier to show the existence of cannabis
farms or coca fields and estimate the amount of produce from
them than it is to quantify the amount of drugs nationals of
a particular country traffic in a year. The other implication
is that countries on the list for transit reasons often think
that the U.S. unfairly fingers them for reasons that may have
nothing to do with drug control. As stated earlier, Nigerian
officials often harped on this difference while responding to
American decertification decisions as they affected the coun-
try. However, as shown on Table 5, the country remained
decertified for five years resulting in serious economic and
political consequences.
The certification process was modified in the 2002
exercise by Section 591 of the Foreign Operations Ex-
port Financing and Related Programs Appropriations Act
(U.S. Department of State, 2002). The modification re-
quires the President to identify countries that have “failed
demonstrably ... to make substantial efforts” [as op-
posed to the more difficult task of “fully” cooperating
with the U.S.] to adhere to counter-narcotics agreements
and take counter-narcotics measures set forth in U.S. law
(pp. 1–5).

I.S. Obot/International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26 21
The price of decertification
If a country is denied certification there is a stiff price to
pay. Decertified countries are punished in any or all of the
following ways: denial of the sale arms sales and agricultural
commodities, other than food; blocking of loans from inter-
national lending organisations; and withholding of all forms
of assistance except for humanitarian and counter-narcotic
reasons. A country denied certification or that receives a na-
tional interest waiver is not abandoned to its fate; through
its embassy, the U.S. works with such country to satisfy
the criteria or benchmarks for full certification. In the case
of Nigeria the major benchmarks were (i) dismantling of
drug trafficking networks by, among other things, arresting
and prosecuting major traffickers based within the country;
(ii) extradition to U.S. of suspected drug traffickers; (iii) in-
creased capacity for interdiction at air and sea ports; (iv)
control of money laundering; (v) enactment of legislation to
make it easier to effect property forfeiture; and (vi) enhance
the capacity of relevant agencies to control corruption. No
benchmark for drug demand reduction was specified but the
government was urged to provide adequate fund and per-
sonnel for the implementation of the Drug Control Master
Plan (DCMP).
It is impossible to quantify in financial terms what Nigeria
lost during those five years. However, in interviews with
government officials and politicians involved in drug control
many of them mentioned losses in the following areas:
•Military training and exchange, and sale of arms and
equipment were suspended.
•The country could not borrow from the World Bank and
other organisations. A specific example was loan expected
from the Paris Club to refurbish a major thermal station
that generated power for most of the country. Not only was
the loan stopped but ‘foreign technical partners were also
discouraged from continuing in the partnership’ (NDLEA,
undated).
•Foreigners could not invest in the country.
•Direct air links between Nigeria and the U.S. were dis-
continued, travel to the U.S. by Nigerians had to be routed
through Europe.
•Aids to education and health sectors were denied.
•The Junior Football World Cup was cancelled in 1998.
•Nigerians found it difficult to get visas to travel to the
U.S. and other Western countries. When they did they
were subjected to demeaning searches at airports all over
the world. Nobody was spared: senior government offi-
cials, academics, religious leaders, businessmen, political
leaders as well as ordinary citizens were searched.
•Also affected were support for programmes aimed at con-
trolling drug use within the country. Support from in-
ternational organisations, including agencies of the UN
(e.g. the United Nations International Drug Control Pro-
gramme (UNDCP)) and the European Union were cur-
tailed or eliminated.
•Notices were placed at international airports warning trav-
ellers to Nigeria to be careful. Nigerians were not only
portrayed as notorious drug traffickers but they were also
guilty of different kinds of financial fraud.
•Above all, decertification had come to place the country
at loggerheads with U.S. seriously jeopardising a relation-
ship that had been cordial and beneficial for many years.
•This situation, together with other the fallouts from the
despotic rule of Sanni Abacha, exposed Nigeria to sanc-
tions from other sources, with the most prominent being
the country’s suspension from the Commonwealth of Na-
tions.
Nigeria had, indeed, become a pariah in the community
of nations. For the country as a whole and for individual
Nigerians, this state of affairs had serious economic and
psychological consequences that were becoming unbearable.
Responding to the problem
An agency in crisis
Before 1994, the NDLEA, which held the mandate to fight
the ‘drug war’ in the country, was racked with a series of
problems and could not be expected to get the country back
on the road to certification. The fact that there was signif-
icant involvement of Nigerians in organised drug traffick-
ing at home and abroad was at the centre of U.S. decisions
on certification but the happenings at the NDLEA also con-
tributed. It is one thing to have a problem but entirely an-
other for those given the mandate to solve the problem to
become part of it.
It would take a separate study to do justice to an assess-
ment of how the NDLEA has been run since the first chief ex-
ecutive took control of the agency in January 1990. One evi-
dence of problems at the agency has been the rapid turnover
of chief executives, due to a combination of factors—corrupt
practices, incompetence, and the self-interest interventions
of the international community, especially the Americans.
Between January 1990 and 2002, were been seven heads of
the agency and one Task Force. If the term of the current
head (who came to the post in October 2000) and the short
period of the Task Force (two months) are excluded, the av-
erage term of the agency head up to October 2000 is less
than two years. In fact, there was one head who served for
a term of three months and another of four months.
According to an influential magazine, the NDLEA had
become ‘Nigeria’s stinking house of drugs’ (Tell Magazine,
1994) and there were regular stories in the media about scan-
dals at the agency. In summary, there were celebrated cases
of seized drugs disappearing from storage rooms, agents
being bribed by drug barons and couriers, sloppy handling
of exhibits, missing equipment donated by the international
community, improper use of machines and dogs, vandali-
sation of drug detecting equipment, conflicts between the

22 I.S. Obot/International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26
agency and other law enforcement bodies over the handling
of cases, loss of case files, low morale and corruption among
agents (attributed to poor conditions of service), and increas-
ing murder of agents by suspected traffickers and cannabis
farmers. The rot at the agency had gone too deep and the
whole world was aware of it. In one celebrated case, as rep-
resentatives of the international community gathered to wit-
ness the burning of a large stock of seized heroin, it was
discovered that two packages were missing. Drug barons
boasted that it was safer to buy drugs from the exhibit rooms
of the NDLEA than to go abroad for it. It was clear to many
in the country and abroad, especially the Americans, that
Nigeria was not serious about the war on drugs.
The ugly years
After taking over power in 1993, General Abacha brought
a sense of urgency to the problems surrounding drug control
in the country. He set up a Task Force under the leadership of
an infantry general with a reputation for strong-arm tactics, a
man with many years of service dating back to the civil war
in the late 1960s. After two months in this position General
Bamaiyi was made Chairman and Chief Executive of the
agency that he was sent in to clean up. This was the first time
a police officer did not head the agency and his reign, which
lasted for 44 months, turned out to be the longest and the
most controversial till today. In his maiden speech to staff
of the agency, he made a statement that left no one in doubt
as to the rot in the agency and his determination to make a
difference. “It is sad to note,” he said, “that those charged
with the responsibility of eliminating drug trafficking are
by far more involved in drug trafficking than professional
traffickers” (Mba-Afolabi, 1996, p. 15). Thus began the most
tumultuous three and a half years in the history of drug war
in Nigeria.
The war had no boundaries. More than 300 of the NDLEA
staff, especially those posted to the air and sea ports, were
sacked on suspicions of corrupt practices. Backed to a great
extent by the Money Laundering Decree of 1995, the drug
war moved to suspected ‘barons’, bank officials, business-
men, market women, and anyone who lived a lifestyle that
seemed beyond his or her means. In a dramatic move in
June 1995, armed soldiers swooped on car dealerships in
Lagos and took over 30 showrooms. Owners were arrested,
hundreds of cars were impounded, and bank accounts of
people who were suspected of living beyond their visible
means were frozen. In a country where the display of wealth
(whether real or imagined) is a national past time, the fear of
the NDLEA had become ‘the beginning of wisdom’. Being
rich or acting rich had become associated with drug traffick-
ing, especially if you were young. You were guilty first and
had to prove your innocence later. Even parents and relatives
of suspects were not spared as several were picked up to
answer for missing suspects. NDLEA agents were accused
of breaking into homes without search warrants, shooting
at moving cars to stop suspected traffickers, detaining po-
lice men suspected of conniving with cannabis dealers, and
disobeying court orders. At one point an exasperated judge
accused the head of the agency of ‘making the [money laun-
dering] Decree harsher than it ought to be. The Decree says
one thing and you are doing another’ (Nwanguma, 1999,
p. 23). In his first address to the world press in 1994, the
Chairman/Chief Executive strongly called for the return of
the death penalty for drug offences. “I strongly advocate
the reintroduction of the death penalty for drug offenders
in this country. After all, a drastic disease needs a drastic
surgery for cure .... Let us without delay employ this viable
strategy” (NDLEA, undated, p. 11).
The reaction from civil society to this onslaught on civil
liberties was generally muted because any opposition was
seen as accommodation to the evils of drug barons. This was,
after all, happening in a regime accused of the worst human
rights abuses in the history of Nigeria. Some argued that the
drug war, replete with tough and repressive measures, might
have been waged to divert the attention of the international
community from other political abuses and to bring interna-
tional respectability to an unpopular government. However,
voices of dissent were raised by human rights groups and
lawyers defending arrested suspects. They accused the gov-
ernment of human rights abuses to no avail. The NDLEA
remained in this mode until the death of General Abacha
and a change of leadership at the agency.
Bamaiyi’s era at the NDLEA had some positive effects,
especially when measured against performance before and
immediately after him. There was a noticeable drop in traf-
ficking activities through Nigeria as many traffickers and
criminal groups moved to other parts of the continent, in-
cluding South Africa (Leggett & Burton, 1999). As the data
in Tables 1 and 2 portray, seizures of cocaine and heroin de-
clined but there was a significant increase in arrests for the
exportation of cannabis. With the risks involved in the im-
portation and exportation of cocaine and heroin, there was
a revival of interest in the cultivation and distribution of
cannabis (Nworisa, 1997). In order to cope with this new re-
ality, acres of farmland with cannabis plants were destroyed
in what was called ‘Operation Burn the Weed’. Table 3
shows the estimated quantities of cannabis destroyed in this
operation between 1994 and 2000. Another success claimed
Table 3
Estimated quantity of cannabis destroyed in the NDLEA ‘Operation Burn
the Weed’
Year Estimated weight of cannabis burnt on farmlands (kg)
1994 40000
1995 147000
1996 250000
1997 1327728
1998 1712580
1999 3500000
2000 1038345
Source: National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Lagos, Intelligence
Databank.

I.S. Obot/International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26 23
Table 4
Record of prosecution for drug offences, 1990–2001
Year of
arrest Number of
persons arrested Number of
convictions Number of
acquittals
1990 464 13 3
1991 293 42 36
1992 395 165 106
1993 458 125 29
1994 693 67 20
1995 798 333 10
1996 1187 537 13
1997 2372 1088 16
1998 2814 1180 14
1999 2501 1512 19
2000 2385 1624 2
2001 3592 2041 –
Source: National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Lagos.
by the NDLEA in the Bamaiyi’s years (1994–1998) is the
number of people convicted for drug offences. As shown in
Table 4, not only did the number increase from 1995 but the
percentage of arrests resulting in convictions also increased
significantly.
The country even came out with a national Drug Con-
trol Master plan DCMP which was launched with fanfare
in 1999 and which promised to serve as a vehicle for “ac-
tualising a vision: evolving a drug free society” (NDLEA,
1999). Called a milestone by the new Head of State, General
Abubakar, the foundation for the DCMP was laid in 1994
with the launching of the national drug control strategy (pre-
pared by an inter-ministerial committee) by General Abacha
(NDLEA, 1994). Like many of such efforts, the lofty goals
of the DCMP have remained largely unrealised, but to certi-
fication benchmark monitors the document served as one ev-
idence of the country’s seriousness in the counter-narcotics
exercise.
As far back as 1996, the international community had
taken notice of the efforts of the Nigerian government in
its war on drugs. The American Ambassador was impressed
enough to comment that ‘Nigeria is now serious in the drug
war’ (Newswatch, 1996). However, most of the benchmarks
were not met and the International Narcotics Control Strat-
egy Report (INCSR) continued to describe Nigeria as “the
focal point of West African narcotics trafficking” or “the hub
of African narcotics trafficking” (U.S. Department of State,
1997, 1998). The country, therefore, remained on the majors
list as a decertified nation throughout the Abacha/Bamaiyi
era which ended in 1998.
A return to the fold: national interest waiver
The year 1998 was a watershed in Nigerian political his-
tory. Sanni Abacha, the military leader who took over the
government in 1994 and was accused of many human rights
abuses, died in mysterious circumstances. He was promptly
replaced by another general, one with less appetite for hold-
ing on to power. In an impressive move, General Mohammed
announced elections within one year of his rule to return the
country to civilian rule after 16 unbroken years of military
dictatorships. Elections were held in early 1999 and a new
democratically elected civilian government was in place on
29th May of the same year.
Three months before the elections, in February 1999, the
INCSR (U.S. Department of State, 1999) still described
Nigeria as “Africa’s narcotics hub and a major tranship-
ment point between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.”
However, the report recognised the accomplishments of the
NDLEA whose “sometimes heavy-handed presence at air-
ports produced regular seizures of heroin from couriers”.
Many of the benchmarks were not met, including the one
dealing with the extradition to the U.S. of more than 20 per-
sons accused of narcotics trafficking or money laundering.
However, what the country was waiting for finally came in
March 1999. In a statement by the Press Secretary to the U.S.
President, Nigeria became one of four majors list countries
to be certified that year on the basis of the “vital national
interests of the United States” (The White House, 1999). The
other countries were Cambodia, Haiti, and Paraguay. Two
countries—Afghanistan and Myanmar—were not certified.
The situation remained the same in the 2000 exercise. An
explanatory statement that followed the 1999 announcement
read as follows:
Nigeria’s importance to regional stability, and potential as
an example of political and economic reform in Africa,
lends a unique significance to the transition now under-
way. The President has decided, on this basis, that the vital
national interests of the United States require that Nigeria
be certified at this time. The President’s decision will en-
able the United States to provide important assistance to
support the planned transition to democratic civilian rule.
Nigeria’s return to democracy is critical to the future of
stability and progress towards democratic reform in West
Africa. (p. 3)
In addition,
If Nigeria’s ongoing transition fails, it could easily result
in an implosion of government and the collapse of the
economy, triggering a humanitarian disaster in Africa’s
most populous country, with over 100 million people,
and a destabilising exodus of Nigerians to neighboring
states. Such an upheaval could also disrupt the movement
of high-quality Nigerian oil, which accounts for more
than seven percent of total U.S. petroleum imports. (U.S.
Department of State, 1999)
It was clear from the INCSR that Nigeria had not done
enough to deserve full certification but a national interest
waiver was good enough to celebrate. Among those who
always regarded Nigeria’s decertification in 1995 as politi-
cally motivated, the decision to grant a waiver to the country
and the explanation that accompanied it was a confirmation
of their suspicions.

24 I.S. Obot/International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26
Table 5
U.S. certification status for Nigeria since the inception of the exercise
Year Number of countries
on the majors list Nigeria’s certification status
1988 25 Full certificationa
1989 25 Full certification
1990 24 Full certification
1991 25 Certification with explanation
1992 27 Certification with explanation
1993 27 Certification with explanation
1994 26 Denial of certification
1995 29 Denial of certification
1996 31 Denial of certification
1997 31 Denial of certification
1998 28 Denial of certification
1999 28 National interest certification
2000 26 National interest certification
2001 24 Certification with explanation
2002 23 Certification with explanation
Source: International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (2001).
Note: Certification decisions are announced early in the year, usually in
March, and are based on performance in the previous year. The majors list
in 2000 comprised of the following countries: Afghanistan, The Bahamas,
Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Dominican Repub-
lic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Thailand, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
aThis certification status ceased to exist as of 1991.
The year 2000 seems to have marked a new beginning for
the drug control agency in Nigeria. In October of that year a
new chairman was appointed as the seventh person to head
the NDLEA and the third in six months. For the first time
it was not a policeman or a military officer but still, as a re-
tired security operative, a member of the armed forces. The
new leadership seems to have, indeed, given some sense of
direction to the agency. In the political sphere, the Obasanjo
administration had launched a campaign against corrup-
tion (though “corruption remains a significant obstacle to
counter-narcotics efforts”, U.S. Department of State, 1999)
and the two houses of the National Assembly started to talk
about new legislations to counter the trade in narcotics and
money laundering. As shown in Table 5, in the 2001 and
2002 exercises, the country was given the highest level of
certification (known as certification with explanation) for
performance in the preceding years. After two years of na-
tional interest waiver and no major disaster at the agency,
there was no way to go but up, especially with the repatria-
tion of four fugitives to the U.S. to stand trial for suspected
narcotics and money laundering offences. However, Nigeria
still “remains a hub of narcotics trafficking and money laun-
dering activity” (U.S. Department of State, 2002, X-49).
The certification exercise: drugs or politics?
Whatever was behind the denial of certification between
1994 and 1999 has been a subject of debate and speculation.
Even before 1994, government officials seemed to believe
that Nigeria was being given a bad name in order to hang it.
As stated earlier, drug control officials argued publicly that
the contribution of Nigerians to the world drug problem was
not significant enough to warrant arm-twisting by the U.S.
and ultimate decertification. They argued that Nigeria did
not produce cocaine or heroin (not minding that the coun-
try was blamed for serving as a transit and not a produc-
ing country); many of the people arrested were not Nigeri-
ans but other West African nationals travelling with forged
Nigerian passports; Nigerians carry only small amounts of
drugs; or if there was no demand there would be no supply.
To be direct and specific, the Presidential Adviser on Drugs
and Financial Crimes (the equivalent of the U.S. drug czar)
minced no words in his assessment. Decertification, he said,
is “punitive ... it is entirely political” (Mohammed, 1998).
(The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Drugs and Fi-
nancial Crimes was started in 1994 under the Abacha ad-
ministration to coordinate the activities of agencies devoted
to control in the country and advise the Head of State. The
office never quite found its place in the drug policy environ-
ment as the law enforcement agency (NDLEA) continued to
usurp all the functions of drug control. In 2001, the office
was scrapped by the present administration thereby further
consolidating drug initiatives in one agency.)
These arguments continued in the Bamaiyi era even as the
NDLEA waged a sustained war against all kinds of suspects.
The agency was as hard on the U.S. as it was on Nigeri-
ans, albeit in different ways. As far as the agency was con-
cerned, decertification was political and had little to do with
the way the drug war was executed. Moreover, the problem
was not that of supply but the insatiable appetite of the West
for drugs and insufficient international cooperation to fight
the war together. Hence, the U.S. was accused of not being
fair to Nigeria because the decertification punishment was
meted out unevenly. Without naming countries, it was clear
that the NDLEA, through its head, made reference to coun-
tries like Mexico (which was never decertified in spite of the
large volume of drugs entering the U.S. from that country)
and Colombia (which seemed to be benefiting from Amer-
ican attention because of its drug production status). Ac-
cording to this argument, the fate of Nigeria, therefore, was
due to other considerations, not drug trafficking by its citi-
zens. Specifically, it was, according to the General Bamaiyi,
because “we have a military administration” (Agbo, 1996,
p. 10). Support for this position was lent by at least one for-
eign expert who, in an interview with a Nigerian magazine,
said that, “The drug issue is an indirect way of interfering
in the politics of Nigeria” (see Asaju, 1996, p. 12).
It has been rare for any NDLEA chief to publicly attribute
Nigeria’s decertification by the U.S. to political considera-
tions since the end of the Abacha/Bamaiyi era. Bamaiyi’s
successor, under whose leadership at the NDLEA Nigeria
was decertified on 3 March 1999, was the first to move away
from such political argument. Though certification came im-
mediately after the elections in Nigeria, it was only a coinci-
dence, he said. “The accusations against Nigeria contained
in all U.S. decertification statements of explanation are too

I.S. Obot/International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26 25
weighty to be ignored by any serious country or person. This
is not the time to think that those accusations were mere po-
litical jargons made by America to justify the decertification”
(Onovo, 1999, p. 48). This has been the standard position of
all agency heads since the end of the Abacha/Bamaiyi era
and American officials. However, this position continues to
have its detractors. In post-decertification interviews, other
government officials and politicians have continued to assert
that politics had more to play than drugs in the country’s
relations with the U.S. between 1994 and 1999 (e.g. Esu,
2000). However, it has been to everyone’s relief that many
of years of tumult have come to an end and what used to
be cordial relationships between Nigeria and the U.S. have
been restored, at least for the time being.
Discussion
Whether decertification was for political reasons (i.e.
America’s way of showing disapproval for military rule,
as Bamaiyi and others suggested) or because of America’s
concern with government’s lack of seriousness in the drug
war or both, certification was achieved at a great price. Like
drug trafficking, which it was meant to stifle, decertification
resulted in significant economic, social, and psychological
consequences for Nigeria and Nigerians. The effects of
missed economic opportunities, diminished international
support for civil society initiatives, the experiences of hu-
miliation at airports around the world are still felt today.
More important, because drug control in Nigeria, especially
in the second half of the last decade, was focused solely
on the achievement of certification benchmarks, a domestic
perspective on the solution of drug problems has failed to
evolve. Decertification contributed to an existing neglect of
demand reduction, abuse of human rights especially in a
regime already predisposed to this malaise, and solidified a
war mentality in dealing with the problem of drugs in the
country.
At the same time the environment that sustains criminal
activities and makes the life of a courier an attractive alterna-
tive to responsible living was neglected and got worse over
the years. The involvement of Nigerians in drug trafficking
became a public issue in the early 1980s, a time when the
economic problems still experienced today started to unfold.
There are many specific social and economic factors that
might have contributed to a deepening crisis of drug traffick-
ing through the country. For example, a painful economic
crash, a currency that continues to depreciate in value (mak-
ing foreign currencies very attractive), a fast growing and
mobile population of youth ready to sell anything to survive,
all of these contributed to the participation of Nigerians in
international narcotics trade. Of course, drug trafficking can-
not be excused for any reason. Yet, the problem will remain
and continue to be an issue between the international com-
munity and Nigeria for many years to come, unless the level
of attention it has received for most of the past decade is
given to improving the quality of life of young people, many
of whom have lost hope of finding legitimate employment.
One recurring limitation in Nigerian drug policy is the
neglect of drug demand reduction (DDR). The national bud-
get for drug control increased steadily between 1994 and the
year 2000, with almost a fourfold increase by 2000 (UNDCP,
2000). However, because there is no set aside expenditure for
DDR, it is difficult to know what percentage of each year’s
budget was spent on prevention, research, or treatment and
rehabilitation. Though the NDLEA has a DDR mandate and
there is increasing talk at the agency about preventing drug
use and building treatment facilities, this aspect of work of-
ten seems in conflict with the agency’s mandate (Alemika,
1998). Joining drug use matters with law enforcement and
financial crimes may detract attention from the problems as-
sociated with use and the harms caused by licit substances
like tobacco products and alcohol. It may also limit the level
of involvement of civil society organisations in addressing
the drug problem and retard their potential contributions
(Obot, 2003).
The good news about drug control in Nigeria today is that
the ‘new’ NDLEA has a commendable sense of purpose.
There seems to be growing financial support for its activi-
ties and its staff members are better remunerated and less
inclined to corrupt practices. However, as a growing num-
ber of Nigerian and foreign experts have observed, when
a law enforcement agency is the only organisation saddled
with all the responsibilities of illicit drug control in a coun-
try (including the control of demand), it cannot be expected
to perform to its full potential (Alemika, 1998; Klein, 2000,
2001; Obot, 1992, 1993; Osagie & Mohammed, 1997). In
addition, review of Nigeria’s drug policy by the National
Assembly is overdue, a review that must take into considera-
tion the reality that drug use is a growing domestic problem,
and that drug users have a right to treatment.
As for the U.S., certifying Nigeria is not good enough.
Certification should not be the end of a process but the be-
ginning of bilateral arrangements that also seek to strengthen
civil society in its role of providing prevention and treatment
services. Models for such relationship already exist and can
be applied to Nigeria. It is time to show that the U.S. is not
only interested in supplying Nigeria with law enforcement
paraphernalia but that it is also concerned about the effects
of drug use among its citizens.
Acknowledgements
Funding for this study was provided by a grant for Re-
search and Writing from the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation. I am deeply indebted to many peo-
ple who have contributed in different ways to the study. In
particular, I wish to express my gratitude to the NDLEA
Chairman, Mr. Bello Lafiafi, and staff for the valuable data
they made available to me, and all key informants in Nigeria,
the U.S., and the U.K. who were interviewed for this study.

26 I.S. Obot/International Journal of Drug Policy 15 (2004) 17–26
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