Indiscrimate use of drug jeopadises ambition, OGSG warn

Ogun State Government has warned youths across the State against indiscriminate use of illicit drugs, saying, it can jeopardise their ambitions in life.

The State Commissioner for Health, Dr, Babatunde Ipaye, gave the warning while addressing Senior Secondary School students at Ijebu-Ode during a programme tagged, ’’The Influence of Drugs: Distraction and Dignity on Senior Secondary School Students’’, organised by his Ministry, in collaboration with the Girl Child and Teens Movement.

Ipaye, who was represented by the Director, Pharmaceutical Services and Chairman Ogun State Drug Control Committee, Pharmacist Olufemi Fafiolu, noted that students who are under the influence of illicit drugs lose concentration in their studies and become nuisance to the society in the future.  ‘’Let me talk to somebody here, most especially you youths, at your tender age. Drugs, I mean illicit drugs, can offer you no benefit than to jeopardise your ambition in life.  If you are under the influence of illicit drugs, you will lose concentration in your studies and if such thing happens, you’ll become a nuisance and an instrument to foment trouble and chaos in the society’’, Ipaye said.

The Commissioner posited that the sensitisation programme was very apt, because it provides an opportunity for youths to be informed on the menace of drugs abuse, adding that, if not curtailed, it would become more rampant and pose additional security challenges to the country.

Speaking at the programme, the Convener, Girl Child and Teens Movement, Miss Omowonuola Omotosho, said that apart from drug abuse, students should also be wary of other distraction agents like the social media, clubbing, physical intimacy with oppose sex, ego, over confidence among others, urging them to be self disciplined, maintain sexual purity, stay focused in their studies and learn to speak out anytime they were sexually abused.

One of the participants, Jokotagba Ireoluwa, appreciated the State Government for putting in place such an educative programme, saying, she was now well informed on the danger of illicit drugs like marijuana, cocaine, codeine, tobacco and cigarettes, promising not to allow anyone lure her into an ungodly act.