The Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (retd.), has disclosed that had to fire a pilot in his now defunct airline, Albarka Air for testing positive for drugs.
Marwa made the revelation on Monday in Abuja at the third edition of The Conversation Conference, a programme held to mark the World Mental Health Day celebration, which was organised by the Intersect Consortium in collaboration with Action Against Hunger and the International Rescue Committee.
Explaining why he fired the pilot 21 years ago, Marwa said he decided to terminate his appointment after the captain caused passengers to panic while flying a plane to Maiduguri.
He said, “I used to run an airline called Albarka Air, and one of our best flights was on Fridays, and the route was from Lagos, Abuja, to Maiduguri. It was always full on weekends and we flew the 727 on that route. It has a capacity of about 170 passengers. I used to monitor all the flights of the airline in those days.
“But on this particular Friday, I got several calls from passengers later in the evening, all saying the same thing. They were complaining about the captain of that flight. Sometimes, the last flight encountered rough weather in Maiduguri.
“They told me that midway through that encounter, the captain announced through the intercom ‘, Ladies and gentlemen, I have bad news for you’, and he kept quiet for a minute or two before saying, ‘We will be diverting the flight to Kano.’ That was all the bad news he wanted to say. But people had already panicked. Those who felt like fainting at that moment did before he concluded that they were diverting to Kano.”
Further investigation revealed that he was truly under the influence of a psychoactive substance, as indicated.
Buba stated that those close to him knew that he had zero tolerance for drug offences long before he became the NDLEA boss.
“So immediately the news got to me, I investigated and discovered it happened. Quickly, I checked if we have a captain in Kano. Fortunately, we found a 727 captain who was off for that day. So I explained to him that I was grounding the ‘bad news’ captain and putting him in charge to continue the journey in the morning.
“In those days, when you divert flights, you would also provide accommodation and feeding for all the passengers. So the flight resumed the next day and I recalled the captain as discussed. He did a drug test and tested positive for the substance. Now, normally, pilots undergo medical checks, but this man was on drugs.
“So I fired him immediately without wasting time and reported him to the NCAA. From there, we started doing random drug testing for all the pilots and crew members. The need for drug testing in our workplace cannot be over-emphasised. It is therefore important to implement drug integrity testing policy in the workplace,” he stated.
The Minister of State for Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande, said his ministry has intensified an enlightenment campaign on mental health awareness.
