Niger Topped 19 Northern States in Substance Abuse, Governor’s Wife Reveals

Laleye Dipo in Minna

The Wife of the Niger State Governor, Dr. Amina Sani Bello has disclosed that the state is presently rated highest in the number of people involved in substance abuse among the 19 northern states as of 2017.

Bello, who did not give the exact statistics of people involved said the number of those engaging in substance abuse in the state could have also risen above the 2017, level going by recent happenings in the state.

The governor’s wife gave disclosed this when she declared open a stakeholders’ workshop on the Implementation of the AT- Risk Children Programme during which she also said Minna the state capital has become the epicenter of substance abuse.

She therefore challenged religious leaders and traditional rulers to engage the government on how to reverse the trend.

She noted that the AT- Risk Children Programme was an intervention that offers a multi- dimensional, broad- spectrum approach to the crisis at hand, which includes Nigeria’s search for lasting solution to its nearly 13.2million out-of-school children as estimated by UNICEF

“The northern part of the country including Niger state has been more devastated accounting for 69 per cent of the disadvantaged children scattered across the region,” she said.

Bello charged participants at the workshop to help the state define, “a clear path on what aspects of the programme we should pursue to remedy the vulnerabilities of children lacking social protection across the state.”

The Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, in an address disclosed that 50 people from each of the 774 local government areas in the country would be engaged to train others in the LGAs, adding that after the training each of them would be assigned 50 children in their communities to mentor.

Uwais, however said the Directorate of State Security Service (DSS) would screen all those to be engaged to ensure they are people of impeccable character.

For the stability and sustenance of the programme she said the scheme would be embedded into the assignments of the National Bureau of Statistics.

The Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Ahmed Ibrahim Matane, in an address assured that the Niger state government would leverage existing state initiatives and programmes to provide support and strengthen efforts for effective implementation of the At-Risk children programme in the state.