Nigeria has 15m drug addicts — Presidential C’ttee

Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Drug Abuse, Brigadier Gen. Mohammed Marwa(retd) has put the nation’s figure of drug addicts at about 15 million.

RESISTANCE: HIV drugs are fast losing potency causing widespread panic Marwa, who disclosed the figure upon visitation of the committee to Katsina State to meet with critical stakeholders, described the situation as alarming and an emergency situation, which needs to be urgently checkmated.
According to him, “the global average rating of drug use and abuse is at five per cent, but in Nigeria, we are at 15 per cent.
“We have an emergency situation before us regarding the issue of drugs abuse in Nigeria.
“These prompted the Federal Government to raise the committee to proffer recommendations and steps to be taken to resolve the issue of drug abuse in the country.
“We started our work since December and finished the plenary and now we are visiting states across the country.”
Speaking earlier during a courtesy visit to Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State, Marwa emphasised on the need for government to strengthen security agencies in order to cut the supply chain of the abused drugs in the country.
“On the whole, we are facing the supply side of the drugs, in terms of cutting the supply.
“Government agencies involved need to be strengthened to be able to carry out their functions effectively and the demand side appears to be more difficult to handle.

“We also need to take preventive measures to ensure that those who do not take the drugs remain so. We have to interface with esteemed leaders across the country. We feel there ought to be committees on drugs abuse right from the federal to the local governments and across the communities.

“We do know that the causes of drug abuse include but not limited to poverty, joblessness and idleness which translate to looking for jobs. Rehabilitation and counselling centres are few.
“We will interface with religious organisations and traditional leaders and also examine the Almajirai situation and embellish it with Western education.
“The Almajirai, in the course of their training, do other things that are not good for them.”