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Need I say more than this? It speaks for its self.
quote:Membership on the list can lead to economic sanctions if the US State Department determines that a country is not co-operating with the US counter-narcotic agencies.
quote:Nigeria was decertified by the US as a major drug transit nation, resulting in sanctions against the Abacha military regime.
US names Nigeria again as drug transit nation
By Tokunbo Oloruntola
Daily Independent, Lagos
The United States has returned Nigeria to its list of nations it categorises as major drugs transiting nations.
President George Bush in his annual assessment of major narcotics producing and transiting nations presented to the Congress on September 15, listed Nigeria among 23 nations on the US list.
The other 22 nations on the list are the Bahamas, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam.
The return of Nigeria to the list is a major setback to the efforts of President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration to combat hard drug trafficking that once attracted the US sanctions against Nigeria.
Membership on the list can lead to economic sanctions if the US State Department determines that a country is not co-operating with the US counter-narcotic agencies.
Until the fresh assessment, Nigeria enjoyed a clean bill of health issued by President Bush in February 2002 when he listed Nigeria among the 18 drug producing and transit nations that passed the certification exercise.
Mr. Rand Beers, the US Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement Affairs, then explained that Nigeria was certified by Bush in 2002 because of its significant efforts in 2001 to address drug trafficking problems.
Between 1995 and 1999, Nigeria was decertified by the US as a major drug transit nation, resulting in sanctions against the Abacha military regime.The US sanction was temporarily removed in March 1999, preparatory to the end of the prolonged military rule that ushered in a new democratisation dispensation in Nigeria.
Yielding to the US pressure to extradite suspected Nigerian drug barons or risk decertification, the Obasanjo administration in November 2000, handed over a suspect, Mr. Lanre Shittu, and others, to the operatives of the US Drugs Law Enforcement Agency in Lagos. The anti-narcotic agents later arraigned Shittu before a New Jersey District Court in the US.
The Obasanjo administration was rewarded in early 2001 when the US gave Nigeria a clean bill of health as a non-drug transit nation. The clean bill of health was, however, withdrawn later in December 2001 and returned in February 2002.
The US assisted the Federal Government in setting up the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in 1990, to combat hard drug trafficking.
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