The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has announced plans to implement a primary control strategy aimed at preventing newly admitted university students from being introduced to drug use.
The Niger State Commander of NDLEA, Shehu Nomau Gwadabawa, revealed this during an interview with The Guardian in Minna.
His remarks came at a public lecture titled “Building Responsible Student Leadership, Combating Drug, Thuggery, Hate Speech and Campus Disunity Through Positive Value and Mentorship,” organized by the Students’ Wing of the Coalition of Northern Groups, Niger State Chapter, at the College of Education, Minna, over the weekend.
Represented by the Area Commander of NDLEA Minna Municipal Special Operations Base, Amisu Mohammed, Commander Gwadabawa expressed concern over the growing involvement of students in drug use on campuses.
He noted that the proposed strategy would significantly help deter drug abuse.
“The NDLEA regularly conducts raids on campuses of the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna,” he said. “If Ten (10) persons were arrested, Eight of them would be University student.”
He added, “At a time, we have to engaged the student union government, we sat with the leadership and told them we are going to scale down our raid outside the University campuses, but, than, on their own part too, the partnership is that, they should intensify war against drug abuse sensitization within the campuses and that has yielded result within the University community.”
Commander Gwadabawa further revealed that students were at one point involved in drug dealing, prompting decisive action from the agency.
“If we sat and be watching, remember, they are student, and the student, from usage metermaforse into drug dealing is a very serious issue, so we have to set a precedent in 2025, by prosecuting one of the University student, of course, that deterred a lot of the students, so we have less issues of drug dealings within the University campuses now,” he said.
Highlighting the most commonly abused substances, he noted: “Among students, what top the chat of drug usage in terms of prevalence is Cannabis Sativa, though, what it’s most common among students is re-define Cannabis Sativa which we call (lite kalos), known as loud, adding that whenever we raid campuses, what we found is ‘Loud’, is a re-define Cannabis Sativa, but, not ordinary Cannabis Sativa.”
