The 2024 Drug Report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), revealed that 90% of tramadol seizures worldwide over the past five years occurred in Africa.
UNODC Country Representative in Nigeria, Oliver Stolpe disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at an event organised by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), in collaboration with the UNODC and the MTN Foundation to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, with the theme: “The Evidence is Clear: Invest in Prevention”.
Stolpe said, the African continent is a major transit point of the drugs, therefore, urged Nigeria to invest more on prevention and access to healthcare.
He, also advised the Nigerian government to include all public and private secondary schools in its drug abuse programme.
“The programme should be for all government and private secondary schools and out of school children. We need to sensitise people on the ability to recognise drug use sufferers and help them”, he said
According to him, “UNODC 2024 drug report published today shows that 292 million or 5.6% of the world population aged between 15 and 64 use drugs in the past year.
“That is 20% increase over the past ten years. While cannabis remains the main drug used and trafficked in Africa. With West Africa as one of the major entry point in Africa.
“The continent continues to be used as a transit area for drugs such as cocaine, heroin etc. Drugs trafficked to Africa continues to penetrate the local market. And is adding to the health challenges already facing the nations where cannabis is used. Tramadol used medically is illicitly manufactured and it’s being used illicitly more than the one medically manufactured”, he noted.
Chairman/CEO of the NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Marwa (rtd) in his speech said the agency’s passion for prevention is due to evidence-based results.
“The imperative to invest in prevention is dictated by evidence-based results that have shown that prevention is far more cost effective than dealing with the consequences of drug use disorder. Because, after all, prevention is better than cure.
“At NDLEA, drug use prevention lies at the heart of our strategy in addressing the drug problem as it is: far more effective and cost-efficient to prevent drug abuse than to deal with its consequences. As part of the reforms being undertaken in the Agency in the last three years, with the support of the Federal Government and various stakeholders, we have invested in prevention programmes.
“The magnitude of our effort is reflected in the statistics of our drug supply reduction activities. We have arrested 52, 901 drug traffickers, including 48 barons, in three and half years. Over 9, 000 of the suspects have been convicted in court. We have also seized over the same periods 7.6 million kilograms of assorted illicit substances”, he said.
Chairman MTN Foundation, Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, said, the foundation saw the need to assist government in some areas and decided to assist, noting that in the past 20 years, the foundation has expended N30 billion in different programmes and projects.
“MTN Toundation is 20year this year and right from the start we made up our mind that Nigeria as a government cannot satisfy needs of all Nigerians and therefore well meaning Nigerians and cooperate bodies should get to see how they can assist and in view of that the MTN has made tremendous impact in areas of education, health, economic empowerment, and some other special projects.
“In Fact the MTN foundation has expended more than N30 billion in the process. What is more important is that some four five years ago, we at the board got together and said to ourselves; why these programmes are going on we must now specially focus on the youths because the youths holds a very special demographic in the affairs of our nation. We did our research and found out that as long as younger generation does not have something to do, something to love, and something to hope for; they will be subject to negative distraction.And one of these distractions we identified as substance abuse.
“That is why we started Anti-Substance Abuse Programme (ASAP), in the area if advocacy we’ve done a programme schools across the nation 6,400 students and over 1400 teachers with 140 public schools. And the programme was done in twelve states”, he said.
