Drugs trafficking: Focus more on youth empowerment, to curb menace, Monarch tells Buhari

The Traditional Ruler of Ogidi community in Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State, Igwe Pharmacist Onyido Alexander Uzo has called on President Mohammadu Buhari and Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano to focus more on youth empowerment programmes by encouraging well-to-do entrepreneurs in the country to build industries in order to curb the rate of drug trafficking business among the youths.

The Monarch who made the called on Tuesday during the 2019 NDLEA 5th Command annual lecture, with the Theme; Drugs, Youths and Crime organized by the agency in Awka, the Anambra state capital, noted that one of the actual threats to the nation’s and human security is the alarming rate of illicit drug abuses which has been the order of the day.

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He said the menace of illicit drug trafficking poses heinous threats to human lives, national development, and security.
According to him, most of the Nigerian borders, NDLEA checkpoints across the six geopolitical zones are not well equipped therefore, giving room for the easy influx, movement, and exit of drugs.

He noted that the current economic challenges, insecurity, high rate of graduate unemployment, poverty, failure of the government to provide basic necessities of life, high level of corruption and get-rich-quickly syndrome among the youths in Nigeria, constitute the various banes behind the practice of illicit drug trafficking in the country.

The Igwe concludes that lack of adequate intelligence gathering, insecurity, bribery and corruption, poverty, civilization, and unequipped borders and checkpoints stand as an obstacle in arresting the menace in the country.

It also noted that there is the need for sound orientation/education, strong law, and good governance, adequate intelligence gathering to solve the problem in addition to the imperative role of law enforcement agencies for the sustenance of a drug-free society.

In his welcome address, the state commandant of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Mr. Sule Momodu, called on the general public to always be of help by providing information to the agency to enable them to curb the incidents of drug abuse and violence in society.