From Mustapha Adamu, Kano
Former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Professor Yusuf Usman has said that all the crimes perpetrated by bandits, Boko Haram, IPOB, and phone snatchers are carried out under the influence of drugs.
The Professor stated this at a one-day symposium, with the theme; Drug-Abuse and Moral Decadence, organized by Initiative for Community Action Against Drug Abuse, held in Kano on Wednesday.
According to him, he joined Sheikh Ahmed Gumi to meet bandits at their 3nclaves in forests in eight states and observed that they are virtually all drug addicts.
Professor Usman noted that if not under the influence of drugs, no sensible person could perpetrate the kind of crime committed by the terrorists.
“I and Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, entered forests in eight states in this country. We decided to go there to meet our Fulani brothers in the forest and see the problem.
“When we went there, deep inside forests, we see young boys, mostly teenagers, about one thousand of them smoking weed. There were Quranic recitation sessions wherever we went. As soon as the recitation started, the boys would throw away the marijuana they were smoking.
“We also saw them administering Intravenous Pentax injection. Some of them had canular in in their legs for administering that Pentax injection.
“No sensible person could do what those boys were doing and it was all under the influence of drug,” he narrated.
Prof. Usman said it is high time for Nigerians to rise up and fight the menace of drug addiction, noting that “we should stop blaming one another. We have to rise up to fight it ourselves.”
He also called for the total ban on codeine syrup in the country, noting that the measure would reduce the menace of drug addiction.
In his remarks, former Kano state Commissioner of Health, Pharmacist Ahmad Ibrahim Yakasai, called for drug test on politicians and civil servants.
According to Yakasai, who was the National President of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, the test should start right from the delegates that would elect candidates for elective positions in the country.
He noted that the drug test would be very important in electing credible leaders that would lead people, adding that if anybody found wanting during the test, he should be outrightly disqualified.
