The MTN Foundation has joined the fight against drug abuse by organizing advocacy walk for Kano tertiary students and youths on Saturday as the world marks 2025 world drug day to create awareness against the menace.
The campaign, which kicked off with a road walk was organized under the MTN Anti-Substance Abuse Program, MTN ASAP, in collaboration with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC.
Speaking to newsmen, the Senior Manager, Program Implementation at MTN Foundation, Edward Fagbohun said the campaign became imperative to disabuse the minds of the students against abuse of substance or drugs.
Fagbohun said the campaign was to create awareness among the students about the dangers of drug abuse and also stress out the need for them to join the crusade against the menace.
According to him, “the MTN Anti-Substance Abuse Program, MTN ASAP, started in 2019. It was informed by research conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC which shows the high prevalence of substance abuse amongst young people in Nigeria and they were some states that stood out as high areas and Kano state is one of them. And that’s what actually informed this campaign in Kano State.
“Our desire and target with this yearly events are actually young people who are between the ages of 10 and 25. We know that if we are able to discourage them from getting to use substances or drugs, we will be able to get a society where we have young people who are not addicted to drugs. So that’s why the target is this young people and that’s why we are yearly doing sensitization across the country in partnership with the NDLEA and UNODC. And this year, we are in different cities in Nigeria, today we’re in Kano with students from BUK and other tertiary institutions across Kano state just to create awareness about the dangers of drug abuse and to help young people to understand that drugs doesn’t help but kills. And to also emphasize that its everyone’s fight and we need to be a part of it.
“We are in Lagos, Enugu and Abuja doing the sensitization across the country. We also organizing training for teachers and students in selected schools across the country about the dangers of substance and drug abuse,” he said.
Earlier, the NDLEA Commander in Kano, Abubakar Idris Ahmad said substance or drug abuse has negative effect on the society, linking it to the incidences of insecurity such as banditry, kidnappings and on the other hand, mass failure in academic examination.
Ahmad represented by the Deputy Commander of Operations and Training, Dahiru Lawal Yahaya commended MTN for partnering with NDLEA to ensure a drug free society.
He said the campaign is parts of NDLEA’s activities to celebrate this year’s international day against drug abuse and trafficking with the theme, “the evidence is clear, invest in prevention” while stating that to invest in prevention, the chain of production, supply and use must be halted.
On his part, the Kano State Sector Commander, Federal Road Safety Corps, Mohammed Bature represented by DRC YD Tandana said 50 per cent of traffic crashes recorded were due to abuse of substance and drugs.