President Muhammadu Buhari has said the danger posed to the country by illicit drugs is worse than those posed by insurgency and banditry.
The President made the disclosure on Saturday as he launched the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA), an initiative of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in commemoration of the United Nations International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking with the theme, ‘Share Facts On Drugs. Save Lives’.
Represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, the President, who was a Special Guest of Honour at the launch, also charged the NDLEA to intensify efforts at ridding the vast forests of the Southwest and South-South regions of the country of criminal elements.
Buhari said: “I am directing the NDLEA to develop a robust risk-communication and community engagement strategy that will not only disseminate the four pillars of the plan to responsible entities, but also deal with destroying production sites and laboratories, break the supply chain, discourage drug use and prosecute offenders as well as traffickers, rehabilitate addicts and enforcement of relevant laws.
“I want to particularly draw the attention of the agency to the fact that the use of many of our forests as criminal hideouts is because large swathes of cannabis plantations are hidden deep within those forests, especially in the Southwest and the South-South.
“You may therefore, need to drive these criminal elements from such hideouts because they use it for the growth of these plants and also as a respository for criminal elements to conclude and plan their adventures on our people.
“On this United Nations anti-drug day, I call on all families, schools, civil society organisations, professional associations, religious organisations, the academia, community leaders and individuals to work for the common good in order to rid their communities of drug use and trafficking.
