US COMMENDS NDLEA OVER MEXICAN METH LAB BUSTS AS MARYWA SEEKS SUSTAINED SUPPORT

By Olayiwola Ibrahim // The United States Government has commended the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, for its recent operational successes, particularly the busting of four methamphetamine laboratories linked to Mexican cartels.

The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, INL, for Africa and the Middle East, Michael Gonzales, gave the commendation on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, during a visit to the NDLEA National Headquarters in Abuja.

Gonzales, who was received by the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd) and members of the agency’s management, said he chose Nigeria as his first country to visit four months after assuming office because of the country’s leadership role in Africa and the impressive performance of the anti-narcotics agency.

I became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement just four months ago covering all countries of Africa and the Middle East.

And when I was thinking where does it make the most sense to visit first, Nigeria was a clear answer.

Because as a leader, as an economic powerhouse on the continent, but also particularly NDLEA for the leadership and the impressive wins that you and your team and your interagency counterparts have delivered time and again, Gonzales said.

He added: In addition to the very robust partnership between INL and NDLEA, I wanted to see firsthand where the magic happens, as we say in the United States.”

The US envoy cited the four meth lab busts recorded by the NDLEA this year as evidence of best-practice tradecraft, including intelligence-led investigations, inter-agency coordination, operational excellence and diligent prosecution.

He noted that narcotics trafficking remains one of the most tangible foreign policy issues affecting American communities, stressing that the drug trade knows no boundaries.

The work that INL does in the United States and globally and the work that NDLEA does fundamentally delivers for the Nigerian people, for the American people,” he said.

Gonzales observed that over 40 years of INL partnership with Nigeria has included training and equipment support.

He warned that intense US pressure on cartels in the Western Hemisphere was pushing trafficking flows toward Africa, Europe and Oceania, while the shift from plant-based to synthetic drugs calls for sustained action against transnational criminal organisations and their financial networks.

In his response, General Marwa described the partnership between INL, the US Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, and the NDLEA as a shared investment in the collective security of both nations.

Crime has no borders, and neither does the threat. The drugs we seize, the arms we intercept and the terrorist financing we trace are not separate problems, Marwa said.

He disclosed that the agency recently dismantled the largest clandestine methamphetamine laboratory ever discovered in Nigeria in a forest in Ijebu East, Ogun State, where three Mexican meth experts and their Nigerian collaborators were arrested and illicit substances worth over $360 million were recovered.

According to him, barely four weeks later, another industrial-scale laboratory was raided at Tapa Village in Oyo State, where a Mexican expert and four Nigerian collaborators were arrested.

Similar facilities have also been dismantled in Enugu and Ebonyi States.

These were not isolated incidents. They show a deliberate attempt to turn Nigeria into a manufacturing hub, Marwa said.

Let me be plain about why this matters to Washington. These cartels are not setting up in our forests to supply Nigerian consumers alone.

They want a West African corridor to ship industrial quantities of methamphetamine to Europe, to Asia, and to American cities.

Every meth producing laboratory that we shut down is a supply line that never reaches an American street, and every cartel operative we arrest is one fewer in the pipeline.”

Marwa said the convergence of drugs, arms and terrorism remains a major threat, noting that drug money buys guns, guns sustain armed groups, and armed groups sustain terrorism, and that what festers in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin does not stay there.

He said INL assistance underpins the agency’s capabilities in forensic analysis, training and equipment maintenance, and has fueled offensives that led to the arrest of 96,157 drug offenders including 250 drug barons, seizure of over 15.8 million kilograms of illicit drugs and conviction of 16,691 traffickers in the last five years.

Marwa, however, warned that any withdrawal of INL support would create a gap for criminal networks to exploit, and urged Gonzales to convey to Washington that the support as is, should be maintained if not increased.