On Friday, Senator Shehu Sani responded to remarks made by Buba Marwa, the head of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), who stated that each sniffer dog costs between $15,000 and $20,000.
Marwa had made this known on Thursday when he testified in favour of his budget for the upcoming year before the House of Representatives Committee on Narcotics.
The NDLEA director stated that the organisation requires more sniffer dogs to combat drug trafficking.
Marwa, however, steadfastly declined to say how many sniffer dogs the organisation possessed.
“We definitely need dogs. Dogs cost between $15,000 and $20,000 each. I won’t state in this forum to the hearing of the cartels how many dogs we have. We need more dogs. I will take the opportunity to express appreciation to the German criminal police — we work with them. On the dogs, they supply the dogs.
“They just supplied a few. More importantly, they are building a six million euro dog training school in Lagos which would be used also with our neighbours in ECOWAS,” he said.
Reacting to this on Friday, Sani said in a Twitter post that those dogs should be kept away from dog eaters.
“Those NDLEA $10k Dogs should be kept away from those states that eat dogs,” Sani wrote.
Those NDLEA $10k Dogs should be kept away from those states that eat dogs.
— Senator Shehu Sani (@ShehuSani) November 4, 2022
The NDLEA has been resurgent in the fight against drug trafficking under Marwa.