Lagos lawmaker urges stakeholders to equip educational institutions, curb drug abuse
By Oluwatope Lawanson
A member, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Adedamola Kasumu, says that all hand must be on deck to ensure that educational institutions are fully equipped to further develop the strategies to end menace of drug abuse.
Kasumu, representing Ikeja Constituency 11, gave the charge on Thursday at the constituency stakeholders’ meeting in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that theme of the 2021 Constituency Meeting is: Increasing Wave of Drug Abuse: A Threat to Nation Building”.
The lawmaker said: “It was sickening and worrisome as bright and promising lives were dieing on a daily basis due to narcotics and drug abuse.
“” It is disheartening as alot of them are infiltrating our Primary and Secondary schools.
“This is the time to act and go back to the drawing board in order to protect our future because the interest of our children and youth is the development of our nation.
“This is getting too much and rampant and it must stop,” he said
Kasumu, therefore called on the state government and the Lagos Ministry of Education to infuse drug abuse study into the citizenship education/social studies and civic studies of the schools syllabus.
He noted that this would help to broaden the scope of their syllabus and infuse more of the present things according to economic realities of situation of the moment.
“Their curriculum has to be modified, redifined and re-analysed towards the direction that it will encapsulate the ideologies behind anticrime, antidrug abuse and all other associated issues that has to do with young and adolescent nowadays.”
He urged all stakeholders to do more in protecting their children and wards from being exposed to all forms of drug related issues.
The lawmaker said that the annual constituency stakeholders’ meeting was to interface between the people and government, particularly the parliament, which serves as the eyes, nose and ears of the people.
He noted that participation of the public would allow elected representatives the opportunity to enumerate the achievements so far recorded.
According to him, it will avail people to know more about the government’s policies and programmes.
“The matter of Drug abuse had long been a source of grave concern to the leadership and members of the House for which the house had exhaustively debated and passed various resolutions to address same.
“The need to curb the sales and consumption of hazardous liquid substances in the state in 2019.
“Also, calling on the state government to embark on anti-drug campaign for all secondary schools in Lagos in 2020,” he said
Earlier in his welcome address, the Chairman, Alhaji Gally Adeokun, said that to curb the menace of d rug abuse especially amongst the youths, parents must learn to agree and speak with one voice in training their children.
Adeokun urged parents especially mothers to be committed in training their children.
He encouraged mothers to draw closer to their children and bring them up in the way of the lord.
“I appeal to religious leaders to join hands with the parents and teachers in bringing up these children in way of the lord.
“Let us stop copying everything from the western and lets begin to agree and speak wih one voice, it brings peace and unity and a better society,” he said
Pastor Bantale Fadeyi, Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria, Ojodu LCDA, advised parents to live a christlike life as their children lookup to them.
Youths should desist from from copying negative trends on social media because of its bad impact it eventually have on them.
As religious leaders, we will continue to do our best to nurture them and bring them closer to God, ” he said
Also, Chief Folashade Salako, the Iya Oloja General of Ojodu LCDA, urged the state government to create more awareness on the impact of drug abuse on the youth and society at large.
Salake stressed the need for parents to stop sending their children to live with friends and families adding that parents should personally train them and pay more attention to their actions and needs.
She decried the ugly development of the use and abuse of hard drugs and narcotics and it effects.
She noted that it has a diverse and devastating effects on the safety and progress of the society. (NAN)
