Nigerian Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has urged relevant committees to ensure proper oversight to see that the ban on codeine syrup is strictly adhered to.

He said: “this is one of the good things the two arms of government are working on together.”

This followed a point of order raised by Leader of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan during the plenary on Wednesday while commending the executive on its directive to ban the further importation of the drug, thereby, reducing the abuse of the drug.

Lawan announced during the presentation of his motion that 70% of codeine importation in the country “finds its way into Sambisa forest.”

He said: “The information I got this morning is that 70% of this codeine that comes into Nigeria finds its way into Sambisa forest and what that tells us is that we have Boko Haram elements who are using this [and] we have others addicts who are using this.

“We may even have some of our security agencies who are under the influence of drugs. Therefore we need to do everything possible to support the executive on this to minimize even if we can’t eliminate completely this scourge.”

The leader noted that the action taken by the executive shows that it had found common ground with the legislature.

He said: “I believe that today between the executive and legislature we have found a common ground. We debated and took resolutions. The executive has found enough reasons and grounds to ban the importation of this deadly syrup.”

He advised that the chamber partners with security agencies to deal with the millions of codeine syrup at the counters of some pharmacies.

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