The Commander of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Kwara State Command, North Central Nigeria, Muhammad Bashir Ibrahim has revealed that the Agency is now joining forces with Nigerian universities in order to intensify the battle against abuse of drugs and illicit substances.

The Commander disclosed this while answering questions from newsmen in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

Ibrahim noted that the State Command has taken their advocacy to several higher institutions especially those in Ilorin, saying, “We are going to partner with the schools in order to formulate policies that would help to curb the prevalence of drug abuse on their campuses.”

According to him, the schools are yet to formulate any policy against drug abuse

“As at the moment, none of them have it and we want them to have it, we should have a Drug Use Policy in schools, especially in higher institutions.”

The Commander suggested that the schools need to organize a seminar that brings all the stakeholders in the institutions onboard which include the students leadership, both non-academic and academic staff.

“They can do that by bringing all the actors in the school environment together, both students through their leaders, the Academic staff and the non-academic staff, probably with a day or two days seminar and by the time they are coming out of that seminar, they would be able to come out with policy within the school.”

Transborder Drug Trade

He also revealed that the body is doing its best to checkmate the transborder drug trade into Nigeria through constant patrol of the Nigerian border, assuring that they are now getting positive results.

“Most of the arrests that we have been making have been on the road, vehicles we intercepted when they are trying to bring in illicit drugs into Kwara State and we were able to track down the receivers of those drugs in the State.”

Ibrahim also spoke on the efforts of the Agency to successfully rehabilitate drug users, noting that the users are now being enrolled in skill acquisition programmes such as shoe making, bag making, soap and detergent making in order to make them productive members of the community.

He, therefore, appealed to the state government and stakeholders to join hands with the agency in completing its ongoing rehabilitation centre so that drug users would be kept there for proper rehabilitation, counselling and reformation.

The Commander also enjoined parents to monitor the movement of their children and wards.