Buba Marwa, a retired Brigadier General, was the subject of discourse among a gathering of some erudite men at a friend’s house recently. He’s currently the Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), a position he has occupied since January 2021.

A former military Administrator of Lagos State where he acquitted himself as an exemplary leader. He has since held other positions. But his actions at those stations were not what made him the subject of discourse this blustery Sunday afternoon. It was his doings as Chairman of the NDLEA.

Every act in life is a legacy, good or bad. And from birth to death, every man imprints his own legacy. They count and speak for you when you quit the scene or the stage of life. Mother Theresa, Ivan the Terrible, Adolf Hitler, Jimmy Carter, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Herbert Macaulay, Queen Amina of Zaria, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Chinua Achebe, among others. They all left behind enduring legacies. Some good, some bad. Some serio-comic. They simply imprinted their names in our hearts by their acts of love or hate; by their passion for justice, equity, fairness; by their brain power, unrelenting crusades for social justice and raw activism against oppression of the proletariat.

Marwa is currently imprinting his own legacy. A legacy of fortitude, courage, integrity, leadership excellence, visionary elan and a knack to always make a difference by amplifying the value of a position rather than diminishing it.

So, on this Sunday afternoon, the talk was about the state of the nation. High cost of living, soar-away inflation, the failure of leadership and followership. There were reminiscences on how life used to be nice and easy decades ago. How merit, not quota, got them into Federal Government secondary schools, how merit won them scholarship for graduate and post-graduate studies in Nigeria and overseas. How they travelled long distances, across states, for study in secondary schools and later in universities without fear of insecurity. They were in their teens and they travelled unchaperoned. Their parents trusted the public transport system and the operators of that system. Some even travelled by night buses and enjoyed the ride with all its bliss and silent whispers of the night. No fear of ambushment by marauders, bandits and their kith and kin. Life was good, easy and painless.

What then changed? All, except two, at the meeting were consensual that leadership was and still remains Nigeria’s problem. The verdict was that the leadership of those good old days was not visionary enough to plan for the future. They could not plan for the population explosion that Nigeria experienced. They failed to build buffers of infrastructure in power generation, education, healthcare, to accommodate the exponential growth in population. The earlier post-Independence leadership was myopic, stunted in vision, existed for the moment while discounting the future. The latter-day leaders fared even worse. They did not only waste the moment, they stole the future and plundered the portions meant for generations unborn. Such primitive larceny! It was agreed that all that the nation requires to make sustainable advancement is for the right leader to emerge at the national, sub-nationals and other units that make up the nation-state.

It was at this moment that one of us asked, rhetorically, have you all noticed what Marwa is doing at NDLEA? That is the kind of leadership I’m talking about, he said, adjusting his heavy frame on the sofa to drive home his point. And it worked like magic. Even those who were hesitant in buying the thesis of leadership failure as Nigeria’s undoing nodded in affirmation. He reminded the now excited small crowd of friends how Marwa has turned around the NDLEA from a drug-trafficking aiding agency to a proper, non-compromising anti-narcotics agency. He told the gathering how NDLEA under Marwa dishes out press statement every Sunday detailing activities of the agency including arrests made, even arrest of drug barons – the real dons of the illicit trade, successful interceptions of illicit drugs, some hidden in all manner of places and inside unimaginable items. The press statements, he emphasised, contain names of suspects, addresses, courier companies used, hotels and airlines used by the drug traffickers. A real case of name and shame. That is the leadership I’m talking about. If we have the likes of Marwa as council chairmen, governors, lawmakers, president, heads of public institutions, vice chancellors, you name it, Nigeria will transform to a first world. We need leaders who openly disdain and disown corruption and the corrupt under them. To him, Marwa remains the best NDLEA chairman in the history of the agency. After his submission which sounded like an allocutus, it was acquittal for followership. Bad leadership was guilty as charged. It is the chief problem of Nigeria.

The right leadership is what Marwa is providing at NDLEA. He has become a metaphor for all that is good in the public service space. Any wonder why the NDLEA has attracted more international support and partnership under Marwa. Nigeria has improved on the drug supply and demand reduction index.

In 2024 alone, NDLEA seized over 2.6 million kilograms of illicit drugs and arrested more than 18,500 drug trafficking offenders. Within the period, it secured over 3,250 convictions, including 10 drug barons (the once-upon-a-time untouchables), destroyed more than 220 hectares of cannabis farms.

It did more than arrest and prosecution. It recorded remarkable achievements in counselling and advocacy, two critical areas in the global war against illicit drugs propagation. It counselled and rehabilitated over 8, 200 drug users, some at the level of addicts, and organised more than 3,000 sensitisation and advocacy programmes across the country in schools, markets, motor parks, worship centres, work places and communities, among others, thus creating a balance between its drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction efforts.

Marwa at NDLEA is a legacy foretold. Upon his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari in January 2021, many Nigerians including this writer said at last, here comes a round peg in a round hole. Taking stock today, we now know we were right yesterday. He’s a legacy foretold.