Senior Correspondent, ONYEWUCHI OJINNAKA, writes on the collaboration to save the vulnerable group from the inherent dangers of drug trafficking, addiction and the effect on the society.
At the first West Africa Forum on Drugs (WAFOD), organised by the People Against Drug Dependence and Ignorance (PADDI) Foundation, with the support of the World Federation Against Drugs (WFAD), held in Lagos recently, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Chairman, Ahmadu Giade, maintained that drug trafficking thrives because the most vulnerable substance abusers are not properly educated on the inherent dangers.
Giade affirmed his position on the issue in his keynote address delivered on his behalf by NDLEA Director, Drug Reduction, Baba Oseni.
In the event, which has its theme as ‘Mainstreaming health and child right, concerns in substance abuse policy, planning and programming in West Africa’, Giade said drug habit most commonly starts in adolescence when the brain is vulnerable.
He added that drug abuse is spilling over into countries lying on trafficking routes such as in West and Central Africa which, according to him, are witnessing increasing number of cocaine users, cannabis smokers and those who use amphetamine-type stimulants.
He stressed that prevention must start with a community in which families, teachers, youth leaders and mentors care about the vulnerable, and in which the needs of the youth are not lost on the development of broader national drug policies.
He posited that childhood is the time drug habits are established, adding that it is crucial to how a society protects children from drug use.
“The international drug policy debate today focuses on drug-using adults, and this has overshadowed the moral and legal obligations to protect children from drugs,” Giade said.
Also speaking at the occasion, Country Representative, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Koli Kouame. revealed that West and East Africa remain vulnerable to the trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs.
Kouame, who was represented by UNODC’s Project Coordinator, Glen Prichard, said: “Drug trafficking and abuse persist due to inadequate resources to fight the crime, limited understanding of the nature of drug problem, reactive policing methods, lack of modern equipment, inadequate technical know-how, and limited number of evidence-based prevention and treatment programmes.”
PADDI’s director, Eze Eluchie, expressed that youths are falling prey to drug abuse, which manifests in increasing violent crime, fatal accidents and domestic/spousal abuse.
He decried calls for drug use to be given legal backing, saying: “We cannot afford the risk of drugs being legalised. The push for its legalisation and de-criminalisation must be rejected, especially as everybody agrees with the need to protect our health and our children.”
Eluchie said those who deserve punishment and incarceration are those who traffic in drugs, and not the victims who consume them.
Meanwhile, an international non-governmental organisation, United Nigerians in the Diaspora (UNID), formed to address youth challenges, offer succour to the downtrodden and work with governments in finding solutions to global and national social malaise, has indicted the federal government over the inability to meet its responsibilities to Nigerians facing prison sentences on trumped-up charges abroad.
The organisation expressed concern as more Nigerians are placed on the death row in some South-east Asian countries, particularly Indonesia.
UNID President, Paschal Okoli, expressed the position of the organisation in a statement recently in Lagos. He said the development was due to poor diplomatic overtures by the federal government and the nonchalant attitude of Nigerian missions in the South-east Asian countries.
Silence on the issue by the National Assembly led to the recent killing of the Nigerians in Indonesia, he added.
While the organisation condemns the unpleasant gamble of Nigerians, especially the youths, government’s “quarantine approach” to the predicament of some Nigerians in some Asian countries led to the placement of more of them on the death row in Indonesia.
Okoli said: “A Nigerian recently lost his manhood in Indonesia, for having the guts to befriend an Indonesian lady, under the cover of being a drug trafficker. Most prospering Nigerian homes in Indonesia and Malaysia are daily raided on set-up charges by the local police and citizens without the embassies intervening.
“The federal government must raise its voice in the global campaign against drug trafficking, production, use and against the killing of drug offenders, especially Nigerians in some Asian countries.”
He urged the federal government to demand full investigation into cases of Nigerians in detentions, noting that Indonesia and Malaysia had mounted covert global blackmail, portraying Nigerians as criminals and drug traffickers.
“What baffles us is that while the nationals of these countries are daily operating their businesses in Nigeria without harassment, Nigerians are being portrayed as criminals and drug traffickers in their countries.
“As a group of Nigerians with first class information on the issues, we reject in totality the portrayal and classification of Nigerians as drug traffickers by Indonesia and Malaysia and the continued nonchalance of Nigerian government to the plight of detained citizens in these countries,” Okoli lamented.
UNID demanded the overhaul and investigation of Nigerian embassies in Indonesia and Malaysia following their nonchalant attitude towards the plight of citizens on trumped up drug charges.
“Recently, in the case of Nigerians killed for drug offences in Indonesia, Nigerian embassy left their corpses to rot, unlike other countries who took full charge of their citizens’ corpses,” he added.
He said that while the federal government’s condemnation of global illicit drug trafficking, production and use was commendable, it must also be seen to be vigorously protecting the rights of every citizen abroad. He charged the federal government to inaugurate a national body across the geo-political zones to enlighten the people on the implications of illicit drug trafficking and its reduction nationally and globally.
“Our current focus on punishment by imprisonment and death for drug offenders is outdated and Nigeria needs to join forces with other countries in championing the correction through sustainable awareness campaign and management of the nation’s drug problem,” he said.
He canvassed new drug advocacy to focus on respect for human rights, decriminalisation, proportionality of sentences, developmental approach to illicit production and an evidence-based return to global rationality, arguing that subsisting global drug treaty was plagued with inconsistencies and ambiguous obstacles to international drug policy improvements.
According to available data from UNODC and European crime-fighting agency (Europol), the annual global drugs trade is pegged at about $435 billion a year, with annual cocaine trade worth $84 billion.