By; FUNMI ADERINTO, Kaduna
Kaduna State Commissioner of Health, HCH Hajiya Umma K. Ahmed on Tuesday, charged participants on drug abuse prevention, treatment, and care to learn a lot while they go back to the grassroots to teach and impact what they have learnt on others for positive change.
She stated this at the opening of training, 2-Day Capacity Building Training for its agency’s operations staff held in partnership with the Kaduna State Ministry of Health and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), marking a significant milestone in the efforts to combat substance abuse in Kaduna State.
Kaduna State Bureau for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (KADBUSA) partnered the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Capacity Building Training in the state.
At the event, Master Trainers from the UNODC lead the participants through a comprehensive programme focusing on drug abuse prevention, treatment and care.
The training is aimed at strengthening the agency’s capacity to deliver more effective programmes and services throughout the state, ultimately contributing to the betterment of the community.
Hajiya Umma charged them to be dedicated while they learn from the workshop to impact the society at the grassroots, adding that they can only achieve this when they have the passion to do it.
She said, “I hope you will support the ministry in implementing my mandate at this workshop, hence you go back and change narratives.”
On his part, the Director-General of the agency, Ike Joseph O. highlighted the importance of the programme in alignment with Governor Uba Sani’s administration’s agenda which emphasizes human capital development and citizens’ engagement.
Mr. Ike emphasised that the training is a critical step towards achieving the administration’s broader goals.
Speaking on the initiative, Mr Ike disclosed, “This programme is essentially in line with the agenda of the administration of His Excellency, Senator Uba Sani on human capital development and citizen engagement and it is also important for diligently carrying out the important mandate of the bureau.”
Ike said, “Kaduna State is the first and the only state that has an agency that is exclusively dedicated to the prevention treatment and rehabilitation of substance abuse victims.
“In line of this unique work that we have, the agency has employed quite a number of new staff and we feel that we can only reach out to the United Nations office of drug and crime who have the technical capacity to partner with the agency to build the capacity of the KADBUSA staff.
“We believe that by doing this, this kind of knowledge and skills transfer, we will position the staff and KADBUSA to better carry out their mandate on prevention and treatment activities across the state.”
Speaking further, he said, “One thing that we will focus on is sensitisation, during this training they will be taught what are the effective ways to sensitize the community.
“The key mandate of this administration is community engagement and civil engagement and core component align with the administration, we must do it as expected of us by the government of Kaduna State”.
However, the Project Officer, UNODC, Dr. Akanidomo Ibanga said, the drug situation in Nigeria from the UNODC supported data, that was gathered in 2018, “we heard that 14.3 per cent of Nigerians have used drugs within the past years, that is 14.4 million people, three times the world average.
“Our own situation is peculiar because though we have a serious drugs problem on our hand, we don’t have a enough treatment facilities to handle issues for people with drug issue disorder, if you recall from 2018 to date, the number of people that are using drugs increased.”
