The commandant, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Kano command, Dr. Abdul Ibrahim, has accused the Kano state commissioner of police, Mohammed Wakili, of undermining his agency’s primary duty in the state.
The commandant made the accusation during a press briefing held at the state command’s headquarters.
He said despite the fact that the police and NDLEA have been working in harmony, the infraction of CP Wakili into the mandate of NDLEA by taking the mandate of prosecuting drug cases under magistrate court when only the federal high court has the power to adjudicate over such issues is undermining the NDLEA’s job.
According to him, under section 26, only the federal high court has the powers to adjudicate drug cases adding that under section 3 (1q), only the NDLEA has the power to prosecute such cases before the federal high court.
“It is also provided in the constitution under section 251 that it is only the federal high court that has the power to entertain drug and poison cases.
“If the police has followed due process all these things would have been averted.
“It is unfortunate that Kano state Commissioner of Police Mohammed Wakili had never transferred a case to us.
“An example is what happened on February this year when the CP claimed to have intercepted trucks of tramadol but we later found out that the intercepted drugs were just fake anti-malaria and others but not tramadol,” he said.
He added that the incident was what triggered the agency to conduct a test on the 303 cartons said to have been intercepted by the police and also sent a portion for a more elaborate research.
He added that the results from forensic science laboratory in Lagos show that the drug was negative to tramadol but diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug.