Okoye is disturbed by this sad development and has been compelled to take the fight against drug mongering to the doorsteps of stakeholders with a view to ending the menace. She has since joined forces with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in her campaign. As a woman, she said, she decided to explore her advantage in carrying on the assignment, believing that with it, she would break many grounds in her bid to safeguard the health of the nation.
Using public communication, education and enlightenment, she said she decided to wage a war against drug abuse because she knows the danger it poses for the nation and its people. In prosecuting this war, she said, she had decided to take the battle right inside the den of fake drug and substandard products dealers. She told Daily Sun in Abuja that while in Kano sometime ago on her enlightenment mission, what she saw made her heart to bleed. In Kano, she said, people took it as a legitimate means of livelihood to hawk and dispense drugs freely, irrespective of the place, drugs status and the atmospheric condition of the day.
She said she was touched by the zeal with which those people were going about their business, channeling their efforts in a wrong direction. Okoye pointed out that they could as well channel such zeal into doing better businesses, since drugs hawking was unlawful, harmful and thus, unacceptable.
This passion, she said drove her to seek audience with the then Deputy Governor of the state to inform the government on the dangers that such “celebrated wicked practice” in the state posed to the health of the citizenry. In her assessment, the meeting was successful.
At present, she is happy that the state has witnessed some level of change since government went into empowering the people to do businesses other than drugs, and this has led to about 10 to 15 per cent reduction in drug hawking, from the information available to her.“When we went to Kano state, we discovered that these boys hawk drugs as if they’re hawking groundnuts. I had to address the Deputy Governor, held a meeting with him and told him no, the way these people are hawking drugs in Kano state should not be.
Why not gather these boys and enhance them by giving them skills and then assist them by giving them a little cash. “Everybody must not sell drugs. You discover that in Kano state, it’s like they want to turn hawking drugs to be like hawking sachet water of a thing, and the then Deputy Governor listened and today I know that hawking of drugs in Kano state has reduced,” she said.
She has also been to the Onitsha drugs market, where she held programmes for the drugs dealers and hawkers. She expressed amazement at the turn up whenever the people were invited for programmes. However, she said they had had continued to ask about the source of these fake and counterfeit drugs and how they got into the country to enjoy their patronage. Consequently, she said the NAFDAC had resolved to hold an all encompassing stakeholders workshop, “Building NAFDAC private sector collaboration in anti-drugs counterfeiting”, in collaboration with her enlightenment outfit to discuss elaborately on these issues, with a view to finding a permanent solution to them.
Okoye said that all relevant groups, drugs dealers, manufacturers, importers, security agencies charged with the responsibilities of tracking down fake and counterfeit drugs at the borders, were expected to be part of the one day conference in Abuja, the nation’s capital to give their commitment against this bedeviling activity of fake drugs.
She was hopeful that this would work out and that the NAFDAC, may consider a joint committee or taskforce on monitoring the activities of these stakeholders to curb the menace of fake drugs in the country.
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