By Emem Idio
Substance abuse among youths has become a menace in the oil-rich Bayelsa State with stakeholders at a recent dialogue in Yenagoa, calling for a community-centred approach to redress the challenge.
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Participants at the dialogue with the theme: Community-Based Approaches to Prevention of Drug Abuse in Bayelsa State, also appealed to community leaders to be actively involved in the fight.
The Assistant State Commandant of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Godwin Erepa, said the terrain which is predominantly riverine, is a major challenge for his agency, stressing that the agency currently does not have speed boats for its operations.
The NDLEA official also accused community leaders particularly in the hinterlands, of being allegedly uncooperative, saying they had on several occasions frustrated men of the drug agency from enforcing arrests. He said the leaders allegedly make their communities inaccessible or difficult to exit after arrests of suspects.
In his keynote address at the workshop, Commissioner for Health in the state, Professor Seiyefa Brisibe, represented by Dr Ebikapaye Okoyen, identified some driving factors of substance abuse to include “poverty, unemployment, dropping out of school, social dislocations, family breakdown and peer pressure”.
He also aligned with the call for community-centered approach in the fight against the menace, pointing out that Bayelsa State already had an existing community-based crime prevention framework that can be adapted to substance abuse prevention.
A rehabilitated drug addict now community youth leader from Etiama, Brass Local Government Area, Mr Johnson Stanley recalled how he battled drug addiction, adding that he was now free.” I am now a leader, an advocate of drug and crime free society. I have forsaken my past life, I have seen the light and realized my shortcomings.
I know that if I return to it I will lose everything including respect,. position and better future which I am building. I understand that peace is better”, he said.
The workshop was organized by Search for Common Ground in partnership with Stakeholder Democracy Network(SDN) and Foundation for Partnership in the Niger Delta(PIND), as part of the European Union funded project titled, Community -Centered Approach to Transforming Criminality and Violence in the Niger Delta.”
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