Children, as young as eight years, are being introduced to harmful drugs as parents and teachers watch with ignorance and helplessness, experts at People’s Parliament, a quarterly public discussion about problems facing the country, have warned.
The warning is contained in a statement by Biodun Durojaiye and Tunde Odediran, on behalf of Rescue Nigeria (an organ of Initiative for Good and Informed Citizenship), which organised the event.
The event, titled, “Drug Menace: Impact and Solutions to Substance abuse in Nigeria,” attended by Nigerians at home and in the diaspora, concluded that without urgent intervention, a vast majority of a new generation of Nigerians might be lost without a fighting chance, implying that the country could find herself without the manpower necessary to build a strong nation.
One of the panelists, Special Adviser to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and former Director-General of Christ Against Drug Abuse Ministry (CADAM), Dr Dokun Adedeji, warned that the country was on the edge of a precipice of a ‘drug nation’, when more than 14 million people were already hooked on illicit drugs, three times more than the global average.
“In five years, if we don’t do something, we are not going to have a strong population of young people anymore. We are not going to have good people in authority.
We are not going to be able to do anything. If you look at our population, the highest rate of use is between 25 and 39. That age range is the productive sector of any country. If you lose that set of the population, where is the future?”
The People’s Parliament has been organised for almost two years by the Initiative for Good and Informed Citizenship, a civil advocacy group popularly
