The Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Muhammad Mustapha Abdallah, has called on states where forests are ravaged by cannabis cultivation to adopt alternative use of the forests.
A statement signed by NDLEA’s spokesman, Jonah Achema, quoted Abdallah as saying that through the help of Alternative Development, cannabis farmers should be supported with incentives that would attract them to the cultivation of legitimate and economically beneficial crops.
Abdallah made the call in Ibadan, Oyo State, when he, along with Thailand’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Wattana Kunwongse, visited Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi
The NDLEA boss said the Alternative Development is an approach being advocated by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) aimed at mitigating the vulnerabilities that lead to involvement in illicit crop cultivation and ultimately eliminating such cultivation.
“We have hundreds of thousands of farmers affected by poverty, food insecurity, lack of land and instability who, as a result, engage in illicit drug cultivation. By Alternative Development, state governments intervene through the provision of land, expertise, implements, seedlings and chemicals while buying up produce off the farmers at attractive rate,” he said.
