Chairman of t he Presidential Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Drug Abuse, Brigadier General Mohammed Buba Marwa (retd), has said that the panel will soon transmit its report to the Presidency.
Marwa disclosed this to Daily Sun, during the Ramadan Iftar organised by the Embassy of the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Abuja, on Wednesday.
He said: “We are now working on the recommendations for the president on how to eliminate drug abuse in Nigeria. We are looking at it comprehensively from the point of view of preventive, from the point of view of treatment and rehabilitation.
“So, it is all inclusive with the institutions involved like the NDLEA, the NAFDAC, Customs, Police, Civil Defence; all the enforcement agencies. On this side and the government, the regulatory bodies, NGOs, traditional institution; there are a lot of stakeholders. So, we are putting this report together and very soon, we will submit it.”
Asked if the nation should take the path of Indonesia and Saudi Arabia on capital punishment for drug offenders, Marwa replied: “This is all within the framework of what we are listening to from the public.
“And, eventually, the decision on what we are thinking will be in the report.”
On what the committee is thinking, Marwa said there were conventions and that the issue is delicate and the committee had to look at it very carefully. “It is very important that we look at it very carefully,” he added
On his part, Ambassador of the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Nigeria, Adnan Mahmoud Bostaji, said he was confident that Zainab Aliyu and Ibrahim Abubakar, who were recently detained in Saudi Arabia, and later released, over drug-related offences, were going to be released by the Saudi authorities because of their innocence.