Group decries alarming rate of youths in illicit drugs

The Creative Industry Group (CIG) says the level of youths involvement in illicit drugs has assumed pandemic stage that require urgent measures to check the trend.

The group is an association of entertainers.

The President of the group, Mr Felix Duke, raised the alarm in a statement made available to the newsmen in Lagos.

Duke said the group was more worried because some of their members, including musicians, artistes and others, whom the youths regarded as role models, were unfortunately tagged as drug addicts.

He, however, pointed out that though some entertainers were into drugs, not all were in the shady deal.

The president said the group was also aware that some parents were in the illicit business and responsible for their children’s addiction, stressing that some parents didn’t check or monitor their children’s activities and friends, who also had become bad influence to their wards.

He called on parents and guardians to pay attention to their children, especially the ones in primary and secondary schools.

“The CIG has come out to say ‘No to drugs’ by all,” he said.

The president said that the CIG believed that if the illicit drugs amongst the youths were not checked by all, Nigeria might be worse of it.

“The current level of crimes will be a child’s play. This is not time for everybody to lay down, facing one direction, where nobody cares about it, but only few people.

“It has become an epidemic in our society that needs the attention of all.

“That is why we are using the body of entertainers, which is the creative industry group, to do this campaign to let the world know that hard drug is bad.

“We will campaign to see how we can reduce our youths in the society from taking drugs to the bearest minimum.

We are taking the campaign to other states; we are starting with Lagos,” he said.

Duke said the group, therefore, decided to organise a conference, where the celebrities, the government, NGOs, security agencies, students will speak together in one voice against the danger of illicit drugs among the youth.

According to him, the the conference will hold on Nov. 28 at OJs, National Stadium, Surulere Lagos, with the theme: “All hands must be on deck.”

He said that on Nov. 23, the group will have a road walkout from Ikeja Under the Bridge Bus Stop to Alausa Secretariat, to bring the attention of the public to the conference.