By Steve Oni, Ilorin
The National Agency for Food and Drug Adminitration and Control (NAFDAC) has again raised the alarm that Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gun powder due to the high rate and prevalence of drug addicts across the country.
According to the Agency, it is shocking that Nigeria is leading even beyond the international coverage of drug abuse globally which is put at five percent, lamenting that Nigeria currently has 15 percent drug abuse rate.
The Director, Public Affairs of the National Agency for Food And Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) Dr. Abubakar Ateiza Jimoh, disclosed this in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, while fielding questions on a Radio Kwara personality interview programme “Playing Host”.
Dr. Jimoh said the agency has an average conservative estimate of 15 million people who are on drugs, while three million of them can be conveniently called drug adicts.
According to him, this development had made the Agency to conclude that the level of drug abuse had led to the high level of violence, kidnapping, terrorism, armed robbery and even dangerous driving by some Nigeria drivers.
He said most youths under the age bracket of 19 and 22 and even parents both male and female have seriously engaged in taking hard concoctions different from the common cocaine and heroin which names could not be ascertained but imported into the country from other African countries.
The Director of Public Affairs of the Agency who is also a member of the 28-member Presidential Advisory Committee on Elimination of Drug Abuse which is multisectoral headed by Retired Brigadier-General Buba Marwa said the committee had series of dialogue sessions with various stakeholders on how to reduce, if not totally eliminate, the abuse of drugs in the country.
According to him, the committee would submit its findings and recommendations to the Federal Government in May this year for implementation.
Similarly, he disclosed that the committee was working and engaging various embassies of countries where these hard drugs are being imported to Nigeria by tackling the menace from the source and as well deploy multinational approaches ranging from regulatory, enforcement to sensitisation.
Dr. Jimoh recalled that NAFDAC had recently destroyed billions of Naira worth of containers loaded with tramadol and other related hard drugs which, if it had ordinarily gone into circulation, would have destroyed several lives.
He also disclosed that NAFDAC had shifted away from being just a mere regulatory agency of public health institutions, but now a key driver in the present transformation agenda in changing the economy from its monolistic dependence on oil.
Dr. Jimoh who is a political Scientist added that NAFDAC is also controlling the chemicals imported by the petrolchemical industries into the country while the agency is now laying emphasis on the promotion and development of the Small and Medium -sized Enterprise (SME’s) as a way of jump starting the economy and announced that Nigerians consume either bottled or sachets water worth over ten billion Naira on daily basis which is being superintendent by NAFDAC.
He urged Nigerians to watch the type of food and creams they apply on their bodies as some of such items are causes of kidney failure, diabetics, cancer and hypertension stressing that most people perish because of lack of knowledge and appealed to parents to stand up to their responsibilities and not leave their parental rights to teachers in schools or guardians.
The Political Scientist described the level of political development of any nation to its economic development and said Nigeria can not avoid to leave the governance of the country to anybody.
Dr. Jimoh advocated three political parties in future elections in the country and said with the outcome of the recent elections, Nigerians are now more concience of their political rights as any non performing political office holder would be voted out of office through the ballot in the next election.
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