*To conduct fresh drug use survey in Nigeria
*As NDLEA floats activities marking day against drug abuse, trafficking

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, (UNODC), has called for action from stakeholders to tackle rising grug abuse among school children in Nigeria.

Country Representative, UNODC, Oliver Stolpe, made this known yesterday in Abuja while joining the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA), to kick-start a weeklong activity marking the upcoming 2023 United Nations Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drugs Trafficking themed ‘People First: Stop Stigma and Discrimination, Strengthen Prevention’, yesterday in Abuja.

Stolpe said the UNODC is working with relevant stakeholders to stem the tide of Illicit Drugs consumptions Ong school children and in Internally Displaced Persons, (IDPs) camps across the country as that is growing at an alarming rate.

“We need to strengthen our efforts as concern school base drug prevention in teenagers. We need to equip our children especially our adolescents with necessary skills, life skills that provides them with skills to withstand the temptations of drug use to harm and to respond to drug use among their peers.

“We have started this of course with the ministry of education, the NDLEA and other partners to roll out such programs in schools,” he said.

He said that even as the international day will be marked on the 26th of this month, the UNODC will be conducting fresh drug use survey in Nigeria to further strengthen the fight against the menace

He stressed the need for an updated data on drug abuse and trafficking in Nigeria reflecting current realities as the last survey conducted since 2018 is the major statistics being quoted by stakeholders.

He said “We need to urgently make sure that the statistics of he drug use survey, as you will recall in 2018, the very first drug use survey was conducted in Nigeria and it completely changed the way in which drug use and drug control was perceived by the government and by the people of Nigeria and leads to understanding the situation as a whole.

“More than five years has passed since the collation of data so it’s high time we repeat the survey.”

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, NDLEA, Brigadier General Muhammed Buba-Marwa, (Rtd), noted that the theme of this year’s celebration is in furtherance of the whole-of-society approach to taming the drug scourge.

He said “This theme is especially pertinent to the Nigerian situation at the moment. In the past two and half years, we have strengthened our law enforcement efforts to cut down on the supply of drugs in society.

“In 29 months, we have arrested 31, 675 drug offenders, including 35 barons; successfully prosecuted and got convicted

“5,147 of them, and over 11,000 other cases still pending in court, while 23,725 drug users had been counselled and rehabilitated, majority of them through brief interventions.

“At least 6.3 million kilograms of various illicit substances have been recovered in response to our efforts to sweep up drugs and shut down the distribution channels. We have destroyed 852.142 hectares of cannabis farms and dismantled three clandestine methamphetamine laboratories.

Buba-Marwa assure that even as we speak, NDLEA agents are busy with interdiction and that the NDLEA has made significant investments in prevention, treatment and rehabilitation over the last two years.

“The doors of our rehabilitation facilities are open at all times,” he said.