Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has called for adequate funding and equipment from federal and states’ agencies in fighting drug and substance abuse in the country.

The Northern group said failure to immediately do so would mean exposing the country’s future to grave danger and uncertainty.

Spokesman for CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, stated, yesterday, that the drug situation in Nigeria, especially in the North, is one of the most serious social and security challenges facing the country; hence, it needs to be addressed and defeated once for all.

He was speaking at a Sensitisation Lecture on Drug Abuse and Proliferation of Dangerous Substances among the Youth, in Kaduna.

“No nation can aspire to greatness or seek to remain safe when its youth and the productive segments of society are left to indulge in self-destructive practices like drug and substance abuse, apart from the sporadic armed conflicts that occur now and then in different parts of the country, the drug problem is the simmering tinderbox that is awaiting to explode if care is not taken, that would engulf our societies and destroy our families. The maxim that says prevention is better than cure should be assiduously applied to this situation. Widespread unemployment, lack of a future for the youth, increasing poverty and a growing sense of frustration and alienation, compounded in some situations by illiteracy, have become the most disturbing indicators of the downward slide of the economic fortunes of the North and our country today.”