‘It’s to curb substance abuse’ — Marwa explains NDLEA’s push for mandatory drug test for corps members

Buba Marwa, chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), says the agency’s call for drug integrity tests for youth corps members, prospective couples, and others aims to curb substance abuse.

Marwa spoke in Abuja on Wednesday during a meeting with Olakunle Nafiu, the director-general of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), who led senior officials of the scheme on a courtesy visit to the NDLEA headquarters.

Marwa recently said the NDLEA is pushing for mandatory drug tests for prospective corps members.

He congratulated Nafiu on his recent appointment, noting that the scheme is a national treasure and a veritable instrument of national unity.

He said the drug test would also allow for early treatment of those who test positive, preventing their condition from degenerating into drug dependence and other health issues.

“The drug scourge has continued to devastate our kids, families, communities, everywhere. There’s nowhere you go in the country that you don’t have a drug abuse problem. One in seven Nigerians between the ages of 15 and 64 use drugs,” Marwa said.

“You have mentioned our efforts to cut off access and availability of these drugs, but beyond that, we have to work with all stakeholders, including NYSC, to ensure a drastic reduction in the demand for drugs by our youths, and one of our strategies to address this is through our drug integrity test, which we’re advocating that NYSC should embrace for corps members.

“As I said, while we do the drug supply reduction, we also do drug demand reduction through preventive measures, as well as counseling and rehabilitation. Now, these are important areas for further collaboration.

“You have introduced in the camps the war against drug abuse clubs, which is fantastic.

“One other important area of collaboration is the question of drug integrity tests for youth corps members. It’s a major drug demand reduction effort.

“The same way we said, if you are getting married, both the bride and the groom should bring a drug-free certificate.

“This is because it is always better to detect drug use early before it gets to addiction, which eventually could get to psychiatric problems, and it becomes a danger to the user and the society.”

Marwa said another area of collaboration is the posting of a sizeable number of corps members who studied guidance and counselling, psychology, nursing, and psychiatry to the NDLEA counselling and treatment centres across the country as their place of primary assignment during the one-year national service.

This, he said, would enable the corps members to acquire knowledge and experience in rehabilitation and psychosocial services.

The NYSC DG described the drug integrity test as a fantastic idea while he promised to study the NDLEA proposal for a possible collaboration.

He assured that the scheme would develop a general guideline for posting as many corps members as possible with the required qualifications to NDLEA commands with counselling and treatment centres across the country.

While appreciating Marwa for the giant strides NDLEA has recorded under his leadership, the NYSC DG noted the existing partnership between the agency and the organisation.

He added that his visit was to seek further means to deepen and strengthen the collaboration between the two agencies.