Renowned legal luminary and human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has confirmed his participation as keynote speaker at the forthcoming joint LEADERSHIP/NDLEA Conference on Drug Abuse, Crime, Insecurity and National Development.

The event scheduled to hold on August 3, 2023, at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, has been described as a timely response to the existential scourge of the proliferation of illicit drugs.

A statement by the management of LEADERSHIP Group Ltd, signed by its Senior Vice Chairman/Editor-In-Chief, Mr. Azu Ishiekwene, noted yesterday that Falana was chosen because of his vast knowledge of the law and the challenges of development.

Falana, a former president of the West Africa Bar Association (WABA), who has been at the forefront of defending journalists and other human rights advocates across Africa for over two decades had been a keynote speaker at conferences of the ECOWAS Community Court among other international legal gatherings.

Ishiekwene said the conference would discuss the future of the drug war with regard to reviewing Nigeria’s laws on possession, use and punishment, rehabilitation, and reintegration of victims.

“As succinctly revealed by the United Nations drugs use survey of 2017, based on a population projection of 98 million Nigerians, 14.3 million Nigerians are involved in the use of illicit and psychotropic drugs.

“These figures have multiplied exponentially not only based on population growth and high rates of socio-economic challenges but also the increase in terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, and other heinous crimes. This is scary and beckons urgently to all stakeholders in the Nigerian Project and well-meaning individuals and corporates to intervene immediately,” the statement added.

Ribadu, an anti-corruption czar and first executive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), will deliver the opening remark at the conference in his capacity as chairman of the occasion.

The statement further noted that driven by the urgent need to de-escalate the menace of drug abuse vis-à-vis violent crimes, banditry, terrorism and the debilitating effect on national development, the conference also intends to unveil the new methods of production, trafficking and distribution of these drugs, and to interrogate the counter efforts of frontline agencies in the drug war, while reiterating the call for society’s involvement.

Focal persons for the conference, according to the statement, are drawn from the presidency, National Assembly, the Armed Forces, state governments, the MDAs, traditional council, diplomatic community, international organisations, the organised private sector, the academia, NGOs, FBOs, the informal sector operators, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, UNODC, the African Union Secretariat and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), among others.