By: Farouq N Musa.
Greetings.
It is with great enthusiasm and unbridled love for Lokoja as a Bonafied Lokoja Indigene that I decide to write on the above subject matter that is of uttermost importance and too substantial to be ignored, and as a figure willing to use every resources at his disposal to drive the Youth of Lokoja to the beacon of dream realization even as it’s so unfortunate that our “Dream” has settled for Drugs. Instead of our Youth to dream they now take intoxicants which has rendered them what I refer to as ” Sleeping Giants”.
Permit me to quote from the words of the 16th President of United States, Abraham Lincoln, who said and I quote ” Everyman owe himself to leave every Society better than he met it”.
It is said that our lives begin to end from the day we become silent about things that matters. I am therefore, arising the consciousness of all bonafide Lokoja kinsmen both at home and in Diaspora to pay attention to the menace of drug abuse in our dear Fatherland so we could have a lasting solution.
Sources gathered, including myself, when we were growing up, shows that Lokoja is a highly fertile breeding ground for adequate moral training which entails equipping us with societal norms and values that stood us out across the State but today, drastically, the morals and everything we ever stood for, is sinking and becoming an epidemic phenomenon in our Fatherland.
I wish to remind us that evil permitted and set in motion soon becomes uncontrollable so we shouldn’t court evil under the guise of being seen as politically correct or balanced, call it what it is and let’s rebuke it if we ever want it to flee away from our land.
Drug abuse is globally accepted as evil and evil naturally don’t have a place in my network. I have no apologies for that. Alot of our problems would disappear if we talk to each other about it instead of talking about each other.
The rate of Drug Abuse is alarming and has made our Youth to be drowning in information and knowledge, while starving for wisdom, we can’t think critically about it and make important choices wisely. I am for mental restructuring of our Youth against this soceital ill that is fast eating deep into the fabric of our hard earned global traditional integrity.
Let’s harness our power together as there is no Messiah out there that is positioned to save anyone.
Today, In-depth research have proved that 7million people suffer from an illicit drug disorder, and one in four deaths results from drug abuse.
Drugs are chemicals that affects the body and brain. Different drugs can have different effects while some include health consequences that are long lasting and permanent who could still persist after the person in question has stopped taking the substance.
Few of effects of drug abuse include
- Weak immune system
- Mental confusion
- Nausea
- Heart attack ( in some cases)
- Stroke
- Paranoia
- Aggressiveness
- Addiction
- Impaired judgement
- Impulsiveness
- Loss of self control
- Hallucinations
- Brain damage
- Weight loss
- Blood vessel infection
- Liver damage
- Lung disease
- Increases homelessness and poverty
- Substantial financial health care burden.
In furtherance to keeping with our well known upbringing, fellow Lokojians, which has created generations of well behaved Lokojians in all facets of human endeavours, and which is now being threatened by this unfortunate craze for deceptive self-actualization, aided by the pandemic drug abuse situation, the desire to checkmate this menace has actually informed my interest to make this publication and your participation in this course of seeing our home cleanse from this ill, would be seen as a response to a noble clarion call.
All your commitment should be seen as safeguarding our nascent culture, which, in any case, has made us who we are today, that has given us a place in the larger society to contribute to the development of our nation, Nigeria and indeed, the world at large.
The earlier we realize that we have a pandemic more threatening than Corvid 19 and act with all seriousness and sense of responsibility, the better for all of us, Lokojians.
This is a Clarion Call from me to all of us as we work to save this generation and the generation yet unborn from this menace called Drug Abuse.
Thank you so much.
I remain an unrepentant believer in a better Lokoja.
Farouq N Musa is the Dean of Students Affairs, Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna, he writes from kaduna
