The cases of substance abuse are rising among the youths in Nigeria despite the large cache of seizures that the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has made in the course of the year. This ugly situation calls for introspection and concerted efforts by all and sundry. Nigerians should no longer live in the ‘It’s not my portion’ mode says Lagos State Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu. He made this known as he addressed the good people of Lagos during the 15th Annual Town Hall Meeting on Security organized by the Lagos State Security Trust Fund which held in Lagos yesterday.
Addressing the issue among the questions which rose following the audiences engagements, Gov. Sanwo-Olu said: ‘For us as individual citizens – parents, youths – we have to accept that we have a problem. So a lot of people live in denial that it is not my portion but it is real. It is with us.’
‘As a government, there are two agencies that were setup. We probably slowed down last year because of the activities that we couldn’t do. We didn’t stop and I am sure that the Ministry of Youth and Social Development have continued. We also have an office – the Office of Civic Engagement.
What they are also doing is to go around the nooks and crannies and identify spots where these things happen and see if we can first take that deniability component off it, accept it and we can now be able to deal with it.’
On the kinds of reasons leading to substance abuse, the Lagos State Governor noted: ‘Some are criminality, we need to take those out; some are peer pressure, this is a place where parents and guardians need to come in; and some are due to areas where we are not monitoring very well. We are working with NDLEA, we are supporting their officers here to ensure that they can also do their jobs.’
‘We all have an issue to deal with. Let everybody – parents, guardians – know that it is not a treatment to hide under your bed and say it is not happening. It is happening and we need to deal with it. For us as a government to also show that we are building capacity, we are building a purpose hospital, 500-bed hospital in Epe just for that purpose alone. The construction is ongoing’, he disclosed.
