As part of efforts to reduce the prevalence of hard drugs among youths, the Chief Executive, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Mohamed Buba Marwa, will use the opportunity of this year’s Ogidi Day festival to educate youths of the town and neighbouring communities on the dangers of drug abuse.

Director-General, Ogidi Day Festival, Mr. Tunde Ipinmisho, who said this in a statement, explained that Marwa, who is the special guest of honour in accepting the invitation, said abuse of drugs posed threat to the future of the country and the destiny of its youths.

Marwa, he said, emphasised that every available opportunity should be used to dissuade the country’s future leaders from habits that could extinguish their hope.

The Ogidi Day festival will be held in Ogidi-Ijumu, Kogi State, this weekend. The festival is in commemoration of the arrival of the new yam by the people of the agrarian Ogidi community.

The Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, the Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly, Prince Matthew Kolawole, the Director-General, Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation, Mr. Folorunsho Coker, and others are expected at the event.

The statement said the Kogi State Commissioner for Finance, Budget and Planning, Mukadam Idris Asiru, would be the chairman on the occasion while the Iyalode of Aiyetoro-Gbedde, Chief (Mrs.) Motolani Rasheedat Salawu, would be the chairperson.

Also expected are the Galadima Garin Nupe, Danjuma Galadima, who would be the special guest and the Ciroman Nupe, Usman Manko Babayitso, among others.

Ipinmisho added that the Nupe emirate had been represented at the festival since 2013, which, he said, was a testimony to the warm relationship between Ogidi and Bida, after the bloody wars between the Okun people of Kogi State and the Nupe Kingdom, which ended in victory for the Okun coalition at the battle of Ogidi in 1897.

A delegation of traditional rulers from the South West, led by the Alayemore of Ido-Osun, Olojudo Obalufon Adedapo Aderemi, would also perform the enthronement of Nigeria’s icon of the visual arts, Chief Nike Okundaye, an indigene of the community, as the Oba Asa (Queen of Culture) Obalufon.