Marwa begs educators to rescue youths from drug abuse

The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Drug Abuse, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (retd.), on Thursday urged educators across the country to save the youths from drug abuse.

Marwa alongside others, said since drug abuse was widespread among the youth, many of whom were in schools, it was wise to involve educators at all levels in the education sector to help stem the epidemic.

The former military administrator of Lagos State and others were speaking at the 2019 annual lecture of the Rehoboth Dream Solid Foundation.

The event with the theme — ‘Eradicating the menace of drug abuse among youths in Nigeria: The role of educators’ — was held on Thursday at the Nigerian Navy Dockyard, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Marwa, who spoke through his representative, Director-General of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Chief Lanre Ipinmisho, said drug abuse was one of the biggest challenges the country had ever seen in recent times.

He said, “The dilemma of drug abuse is manifested in resultant negative social economic indices and insecurity. It is the root cause of criminal activities such as terrorism, banditry and kidnapping. It is a disturbing phenomenon.

Read also: 15-yr-old fakes own kidnap, demands N.5m ransom

“Most of the users of drug abuse are the youth. Therefore, the education sector has a significant role to play in mitigating the continuous spread of this social malaise.”

In his speech titled, ‘Promotion of Drug Abuse in Nigerian Schools: Challenges and Prospects,’ the guest speaker and Dean, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, University of Lagos, Prof. Jospeh Adeyemi, identified factors responsible for drug abuse as unemployment, peer influence, role modelling, availability and accessibility to drugs and loss of values.

He recommended that educators at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education should design programmes to curb the menace of drug abuse, such as the establishment of rehabilitation centres in schools.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the occasion, Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, lamented that children as young as seven years old were already involved in drug abuse.

“Some even mix the substances with urine, paint and energy drinks. When things reach a stage such as this, we have to wake up and educate the people and we need to start now,” Adelusi-Adeluyi said.

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