President Bola Tinubu has transmitted two bills to the Senate seeking to strengthen the enforcement of drug-related offences and reposition the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) as an independent, multimodal safety investigation authority. The bills seek to repeal and re-enact the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Act and the Indian Hemp Act, as well as amend the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (Establishment) Act, 2022.
Mr Tinubu transmitted the bills to the Senate in separate letters read by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, during plenary on Tuesday. In his letter on the proposed NDLEA legislation, Mr Tinubu said the bill seeks to repeal the existing NDLEA Act and the Indian Hemp Act and establish a consolidated legal framework for combating drug-related offences.
He said the proposed legislation would strengthen enforcement against the cultivation, processing, sale, trafficking and use of illicit drugs. It would also empower the agency to investigate persons suspected of involvement in drug-related activities. “The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Bill 2026 seeks to repeal the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act, Cap. N30, and the Indian Hemp Act, Cap.
I16, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, and to enact a consolidated framework to enforce the law against the cultivation, processing, sale, trafficking and use of hard drugs,” the president said. After reading the letter, Mr Akpabio referred the bill to the Senate Committee on Rules and Business for further legislative action.
Nigeria remains a source, transit and destination country for illicit drugs, with trafficking networks dealing in substances ranging from cannabis and cocaine to methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in its 2025 assessment, reported that methamphetamine production capacity in Nigeria had increased by more than 40 per cent since 2020. The report also highlighted rising seizures of