Kwara: NDLEA arrests 327 suspects in 8 months

… laments teenagers usage to hawk drugs

By Mosunmola Ayobami,Ilorin

The Commander, National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency(NDLEA) Kwara state Command, Muhammed Ibrahim has disclosed that the agency arrested 327 drugs offenders in the state from January to August 2023.

He said the agency seized over one ton of different types of drugs in the months under review.

The Commander made this disclosure in an interview with Westernpost in Ilorin on Monday.

“From January till date,we have seized over a ton of different types of drugs ranging from cannabis, India hemp,cannabis sativa, cough syrup with codeine, tramadol, this one they called ice and other forms of illicit drugs in the state.

” About 327 arrest have been made so far from January to August, in this arrest about 85% of them are male, and 15% are female but what caught our attention of this figure is the age bracket 84% of them fall into 14 and 40 years which is not too good for any state as this is the most productive age bracket of any society, this age bracket are suppose to be in school or gainfully employed or are suppose to be very resourceful”, said the Commander.

Ibrahim added that the agency charged quite a number of offenders to federal high court in Ilorin, adding that the disturbing trend was the usage of teenagers to hawk illicit drugs.

“As we speak,in the past two weeks, the command has had the course to arrest two teenagers that they were using in selling drugs,we have been encouraging the people to look after their children and health,we are partnering with ministry of social welfare,as we can’t keep them here as we don’t have juvenile facility,one thing they should know is that there’s juvenile court,so if they feel that they can use them,we we’ll refer them to juvenile court and the appropriate penalty will be meted to them.

” About 40 of the 327 will be going to court after court recess,meanwhile this figure is from January so many of them have been sentenced”, said Ibrahim.

According to him, the agency looked at those rehabilitated, residents,the brief counseling ones, motivation interviewing, and release them.

He said the agency established drugs free clubs in secondary schools and make it functional, adding that it would build the capacity of teacher around them.

“I will not say the penalty meted out on offenders are too lenient but the NDLEA act needs to be amended,the nineth national Assembly actually did good job on that, unfortunately the president could not assent to it before leaving office,I am positive that this assembly will take it up again and probably the presidency will assent to it,as we speak the penalty says minimum of 15 years or maximum of life imprisonment for drugs offenders and possession is an offense but globally,all of us know that person that uses drugs has health problem,World Health Organization (WHO) described drugs dependency as chronic brain disease, which is characterized by compulsory use of substance despite the person knows the negative consequences,so it’s a brain disease that one can counsel and rehabilitate over time,as rehabilitation is a process not a one off thing,so it’s an illness that is relapses in nature.

” As you are aware that addressing the substance problem takes two dimensions,we talk about the supply reduction and demand reduction,in supply reduction where we carry out our raid operation, patrol in and out of the state,in terms of demand reduction,we actually do what we call sensitization, and advocacy, where we take the message to critical stakeholders in the community, where we talk about the religious leaders, faith based organizations,the churches, the mosques, talk about the parents, the school, both tertiary and secondary schools, that is what we’ve been doing so far.We have been engaging all these communities and schools letting them know the role they need to play in addressing the substance use problem.

” Youths are the most vulnerable,they are the ones that are more exposed to the risk factors and they have less of the protective factors in their system, these days the usage of drugs cut across all spectrum of life regardless of the age and gender,talk of music, these days as far as we are concerned,our mandate is not to regulate the music industry and what they do,but on our own part,we try to sensitize the public to know the dangers in substance use and let them know all those things you see on the social media or on television, most of them are fallacy,they are not real and success is not attributed to usage of illicit drugs.

” Another thing is whatever you want to do to achieve your goals whether short term or long term goal you have to stay off drugs, we’ve been doing a lot of sensitization targeting schools, from secondary schools and tertiary institutions,we equally get to communities to address this issue as far as the agency is concerned it has a zero tolerance to even the musicians or anybody glamorizing substance uses in music industry and we’ve been doing a lot of that in recent time, what we are saying in essence is once there’s availability of substance and it’s affordable, and accessible definitely we’ll see those that will want to use it” he explained.

He further said “Drugs of abuse these days which is not limited to drugs alone,we have other substances that are not legislate against that are been abused or been used by the youth, what I am saying in essence is we only talk about substance interchange it with drugs when our mandate are mainly on drugs that are covered by the chartered law of 1961 and 1971 or so, that is UN chartered on psychotropic narcotics use, where we have the cocaine, heroine, metavitamins, cannabis and what a view,but now we talk about other substances like soak and dye,sack and milk, Akuskura ,a lot of these which are our major problems here,so the message we normally give to the youth now is not just issue of drugs,we teach them what we call lives skills,the aim is to positive lifestyle,we imbibe live skills in them to be able to resist all this media, peer group, internet pressure they are faced with”.

He identified poor parenting as part of factors responsible for youth involvement in drugs usage.

“Though drug issue is not a moral issue we might not term it as failure in terms parenting but when there’s no adequate purposeful and positive parenting,the question we always ask,do you know the friends your kids keep? Do you know where your kids go to when he says he wants to go out?How many parents have taken time to go to the school to see if their kids are in school, how many parents take time to search their rooms when the kids are not around?these things are not hidden,if they are using it,there must be signs, you will see something that will give you sign that this kid is into something,his academic is going down and you feel it is a normal thing?he keeps friends away,you think it’s a normal thing?, another question we always ask is how many parents sit-down to talk about this issue of drugs that is a problem, have you been exposed to it? Have you been pressured to take any drugs? Have you had the urge to take anything? How can you resist all this pressures?They feel once they provide source of livelihood ,pay school fee,that’s all, moreover how many parents are actually role models?” He queried.

“Kwara state situation is so pathetic because household drugs survey conducted by United Office of Drugs and Crime for this 2017/2018 shows that prevalence substance use in Nigeria is 14.3% that nearly 15% of Nigeria are on substance use,age between 15 and 64 in the past year when it was conducted,it broken down to state by state, zone by zone, and when we talk about North Central where Kwara falls in, kwara has 13% which is the highest nothing that the global drugs prevalence rate is 5.6% so Nigeria is like three times that, now the question is,we have nearly 15%, one out of seven,in kwara we one out of six, the remaining 80 something percent do you allow them to join them?, that’s where our drugs demand reduction comes in, that is where we have to increase our sensitization and awareness and advocacy programme by involving communities, schools, partnering with higher institution in the state we are setting up drug issue policies in the schools,we are joining it with their counseling and psychology unit, Students Union Government, and NDLEA collaboration, there’s a kind of committee that has been set up,we are trying to come up with blueprint on how to address this issue because we noticed students are the vulnerable,we are already on that with Kwara poly,Kwara state University and University of Ilorin.

” In community, we are now having war against drug abuse community based groups, we’ll be sensitizing the groups once we sensitize them periodically they will be having meetings where they will be talking to themselves,they will be the advocators, they will be the engine room that move our awareness program,they will be able to identify those that are selling, we’ll partner with the sensitization groups and take them out” he added.

He appealed to the state government and Kwarans to help complete the center facility project initiated by the Emir of Ilorin, so as to accommodate more people for rehabilitation as the current facility is over stretched.

Ibrahim said the agency collaborated with all sister agencies for intelligence gathering and operational purposes.

“parents should get themselves familiar with the risk factors of drugs usage,how it can be minimize, encourage the protective factors, what’s positive parenting?, how can they be part of the child’s life, these are things parents can learn to help the upbringing of the young minds.

” Youth, they say you’re the future leaders, if you engage in illicit substance use,there is no way you can be feature leaders,you will be faced with peer pressure, challenges, challenges are part of life you can be the best in which ever field you have chosen with consistency and studying hard,I am sure you will get there” he said.