The Emir of Daura, Umar Farouk Umar, has fingered security agencies, accusing them of complicity over the seeming failure of the nation’s successive governments to effectively combat the menace of drug peddling and abuse.

“If you want to overcome the menace of drug abuse, then you must beam your searchlight on the security agencies because they hold the key,” the Emir said on Friday when the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Drug Abuse, Gen. Mohammed Buba Marwa rtd, paid him a courtesy visit at the palace.

The Emir described the task of checking drug abuse as herculean, insisting that, “the security personnel know the sources of these drugs and they know those who deal on drugs and they are aware of the solution. So, if you want the solution, you know where to go.”

Marwa had earlier told the Emir that his committee was in Katsina as part of its tour of the North-West zone, in its bid to find a solution to the lingering drug use and abuse across the country.

He said that the Federal Government was committed to finding an enduring end to the problem explaining the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to raise the committee.

Addressing a cross-section of Daura residents and officials earlier at the Daura local government secretariat, Marwa congratulated them over Buhari’s recent re-election victory arguing that he was confident that the President will implement recommendations of his committee, designed to address the menace of drug abuse in Nigeria.

“I am delighted to be in the President’s local government and I congratulate you over his re-election and we are more excited because we are confident that the President will consider and implement recommendations we are going to suggest in our report.

“There were so many efforts at tackling the issue of drug abuse in the past but none has been successful but this time around, we are sure of getting the solution and that is why the committee has virtually visited the various geo-political zones and even going as far as the remotest areas in the country. We have a President who is committed and willing to do everything possible to solve this problem.”

Marwa and some members of his team arrived Katsina on Wednesday on a four-day tour of the area to access the level and impact of drug and substances abuse in the state. Apart from series of meetings with relevant agencies including the NDLEA and heads of security forces in the state, the committee also visited inmates at various drug reformatory facilities in Katsina and Daura. At the Daura Reformatory Centre, the Director, Hajiya Fatimah Mohammed, noted that the facility which was commissioned in January has a major objective of, “stopping or reducing to the barest minimum, the deviant behaviour of our youth on substance abuse and also rehabilitate them, in order to become useful members of the society.”

The committee also visited the NDLEA facility at the Nigeria-Niger anticrime joint border patrol at Kongalam, a border town between Nigeria and Republic of Niger.

•Sourced from a Saturday Sun report

Update news