Inside Zamfara’s New Drug War: How NSCDC Is Cutting The Lifeline Of Banditry

The carton looked ordinary. It was a brown Indomie noodles carton, the type seen daily in markets across Gusau and Anka. But inside it, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Zamfara State said was a cocktail of substances fuelling the cycle of violence in the North-West. Inside were 50 sachets of Lara Tramadol, two packs of methamphetamine, popularly called Ice, 1,000 pieces of Diazepam (D5) tablets and two tied parcels of cannabis. For the 24-year-old commercial driver who carried it, the journey ended at 11:30 am on October 18, at a routine NSCDC checkpoint in Anka Local Government Area. For Zamfara State, it was another window into how illicit drugs move through the h...