Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, says the war against drug abuse among youths may be difficult to win until mothers in the country rediscover their pivotal role in nation-building beginning with maintaining a God-fearing home.
In her statement on Sunday to mark this year’s International Women’s Day, she said many Nigerian youths from good homes became addicted to narcotics and other dangerous drugs as a result of the care-free attitude of their parents, particularly mothers.
She said: “Mothers should endeavour to be vigilant by paying more than passing attention to their children wellbeing and the kind of friends they keep both in and out of school.
“Many children from God-fearing homes join bad gangs through the bad company they keep in school.”
She decried the preponderance of secret cults in the country’s tertiary institutions, saying many undergraduates were introduced to dangerous drugs and bad behaviours as members of cult groups.
She blamed the uncontrolled influx of narcotics and other dangerous drugs, which she said had negatively impacted public health and safety, security and terrorism, on the absence of NAFDAC at the country’s ports from 2011.
She said: “The challenge of internal security within the country was traced to the uncontrolled influx and use of psychotropic medicines such as tramadol and chemicals that could be diverted for terrorist activities’’.
She said the Narcotics and Other Allied Drugs Directorate of the agency had been strengthened to enforce extant laws against the use of narcotics and other dangerous drugs by youths in the country.
