Adams Oshiomhole, a former governor and current senator representing Edo North Senatorial District, has spoken out against the establishment of a National Institute for Drug Awareness and Rehabilitation.
In response to the Bill for an Act to Establish the National Institute for Drug Awareness and Rehabilitation, to coordinate and promote drug awareness, prevent substance abuse, and facilitate the rehabilitation of drug users, and for other purposes, Oshiomole contended that the National NDLEA already fulfills this role.
Oshiomhole argues that rather than forming another agency, we should focus on strengthening the laws controlling the NDLEA, since establishing a new organization will result in excessive costs.
He said:
“We have the NDLEA, the sole mandate of NDLEA is not only to address and prosecute drug traffickers, it is to deal with the whole drug abuse, enlighten those involved in drug abuse, they have training institutes.
“My suggestion is that we should look into the existing laws that have to do with NDLEA whose mandate is captured here substantially, to see whether we need to make amendments to that law. if there are certain things the agency is not able to do because of some gap in the law that established it.
“In my opinion, this idea of setting up an agency for every aspect of life where we have challenges if we were to do so, we would have so many laws.
“We need to see whether or not we need to strengthen the NDLEA or create a new agency. My worry is that we are spending so much money on overhead, we are going to have directors, officers etc all that goes into the current expenditure which adds little or no value to the quality of life of Nigerians.
“I agree we must deal decisively with drug-related issues but I’m not convinced we need to establish yet another agency that will be competing with the NDLEA.”
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cc: Daily Post Ng
