T

he story of a Nigerian marrying an Indonesian woman to force her to become the courier in a global drug trafficking syndicate is not uncommon here. More than a dozen Nigerian drug smugglers have reportedly been executed in Indonesia, while at least another 20 are currently on death row.

Indonesia and Nigeria are now promoting strategic cooperation to combat illicit drug trafficking - an issue which both countries say could override or even damage good ties since 1955, when the latter's leaders came to the Bandung Conference.

"The purpose of this cooperation is to ensure that such issues will not hamper our bilateral relations in the future," Foreign Ministry's director general for Asia-Pacific and African affairs, T.M. Hamzah Thayeb, said.

He was speaking to The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a one-day workshop on the issue organized by the Foreign Ministry at Arya Duta Hotel in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Nigeria is Indonesia's biggest investment destination in Africa, Hamzah said, with trade flows between the two countries reaching US$803 million in 2007 before plunging to $404 million last year due to the global downturn.

While rebutting the wide perception that big time drug traffickers come mainly from his country, Nigerian Ambassador to Indonesia, Ibrahim B. Mai-Sule, stressed the urgency of this cooperation.

He said: "Nigeria and Indonesia should come together and see how they can solve the menace of drug trafficking."

The two governments have drafted agreements on prisoner transfer and mutual legal assistance, and an MoU on drug trafficking signed by Indonesia's National Narcotics Agency (BNN) and Nigeria's National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

NDLEA director general, Otunba Lanre Ipinmisho, believed that the most important aspect of cooperation was on the exchange of intelligence information.

"This strategy remains an important instrument used to deter would be Nigerian drug couriers from obtaining visas from participating countries, which are often either source or gateway countries for illicit drugs," he said.

He also stressed the need to set up a working mechanism between his agency and its Indonesian counterpart with a requisite legal framework. Nigeria has signed similar agreements with countries such as the US, France, Pakistan and India.

"Illicit drug trafficking is a transnational crime that has no respect for national boundaries," he said.

"The modus operandi and enormous resources available to illicit drug trafficking networks makes it virtually impossible for a nation to single handedly fight the drug war irrespective of the resources at its disposal.

BNN executive director Gories Mere welcomes the initiation for strategic cooperation between the two agencies, saying that bilateral, regional and international collaboration is needed and should be enhanced given that foreign operators contributed significantly to aggravating the domestic drug situation.