President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved the renewal of Brigadier-General Mohammed Buba Marwa’s (rtd) appointment as Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for an additional five-year term.
Marwa, who was first appointed by former President Muhammadu Buhari in January 2021, will now continue to lead the agency until 2031. Before his initial appointment, he served as Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Drug Abuse from 2018 to December 2020.
The Adamawa-born retired military officer and former governor of Lagos and Borno States is an alumnus of the Nigerian Military School and the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA). Commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1973, Marwa served in several strategic military positions, including brigade major of the 23 Armoured Brigade, Aide-de-Camp to then-Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, and academic registrar of the NDA. He also served as Deputy Defence Adviser at the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and later as Defence Adviser to Nigeria’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
Marwa holds a Master of Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh (1983–85) and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University (1985–86).
His leadership of the NDLEA has been marked by major breakthroughs in the fight against drug trafficking, including the arrest of more than 73,000 drug offenders — among them several high-profile barons — and the seizure of over 15 million kilogrammes of illicit substances. The agency has also intensified nationwide advocacy campaigns to combat drug abuse.
In announcing the renewal, President Tinubu praised Marwa’s achievements and urged him to sustain the momentum.
“Your reappointment is a vote of confidence in your onerous efforts to rid our country of the menace of drug trafficking and drug abuse. I urge you not to relent in tracking the merchants of hard drugs out to destroy our people, especially the young ones,” the President said.
Marwa is expected to deepen ongoing reforms aimed at strengthening Nigeria’s anti-narcotics war over the next half-decade.
