The Abia State Commander of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Bamidele Akingbade, has called on the state government to build a fully-functional drug rehabilitation centre to cater for the numerous drug victims scattered across the state.

Speaking in an interview with newsmen in his office in Aba Thursday, Akingbade said the agency’s Rehabilitation Centre does not boast of adequate space and facilities to cater for the high number of drug-dependent youths in Aba alone.

He said that there were over 3,000 drug-dependent youths in Aba alone who needed rehabilitation to return to normal life.

Apart from space constraint, the Commander said that most of the victims could not afford fees payable for the programme but if a big functional rehab centre is built, the victims could access it because its services would cheaper.

He also noted that the agency’s rehabilitation centre located inside its premises in Ogbor-Hill, Aba does not have the equipment to fully rehabilitate and prepare the victims for a drug-free life in society.

Akingbade said: “We cannot say with 100 percent conviction that what we have here is a fully-functional rehabilitation centre but we are making use of it (office space) as a makeshift because of the renovation carried out on the building.

“What we have now cannot accommodate more than 25 persons if we use a double-deck for the people that are referred but after the renovation, we received some client and admitted them for counselling for a period of time.

“So it is high time the government assisted the NDLEA to get a functional rehabilitation centre, one that most people who are drug-dependent and are willing to go through rehabilitation but do not have the funds to do so can use.”

Akingbade stressed the need to rehabilitate drug-dependent people to save them from returning to drug-dependence and crime and the wasting of their lives.

“From the result of our efforts, being drug-dependent is not the end of the road for people with that kind of lifestyle if they can get rehabilitated and on time.

“We have cases of such people who wrote exams from here and passed with distinction. We have seen those we rehabilitated who have travelled to China and are living well and normal there,” he said.

He further added that some of the drug-dependent youth in the past have been resettled by their parents and they are showing great promises in their fields of business and trade without drugs.

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