IDPs have become drug addicts – Borno NDLEA

Many of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps in Borno State have become drug addicts. 

The Borno State Command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) said the Boko Haram insurgency and resultant tension hanging over the state had pushed people to drugs as a coping mechanism.

The state Commander of NDLEA, Mr. Iweanjunwa Joseph Okechukwu, said at a press conference in Maiduguri yesterday, “Many of the IDPs have become social miscreants using and abusing drugs to cope with their situations.” 

Okechukwu said Boko Haram was one of the major challenges of the drug fight particularly because of ‘surplus military and paramilitary operatives flocking into the state with their peculiar styles.’

The Borno NDLEA commander described tramadol and cough syrup containing codeine as the most abused drugs, especially by young girls, women and men who he said use tramadol as performance enhancer.

Expressing displeasure with the Federal Ministry of Health for allowing the production of ‘unnecessarily large quantities’ of cough syrup with codeine, he said, “There is no endemic cough ailment in the country that requires the large quantities of cough syrup with codeine.”