Prevention of substance abuse can boost nation’s economy – Expert

Bearing in mind that the challenges of substance abuse has attained a frightening dimension in Nigeria, Global Initiative on Substance Abuse (GISA) has advocated that the issue must be addressed from all sides including the workplace and among the workforce considering the importance of the sector to development of national economy.

This was opined at the opening ceremony of a 3-day training/workshop on Evidence Based Drug and Substance Abuse Prevention and Management in the workplace for staff of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) organised by GISA in collaboration with 17 goals Africa Initiative held at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, recently.

Martin Agwogie, founder/ executive director, Global Initiative on Substance Abuse (GISA), said the training is not just about targeting the CBN staff but the Nigerian workforce and institutions to build their capacity.

According to him, “We are starting with CBN staff and Nigerian Port Authority staffs which means we have CBN Staff and NPA staff for this training. They play critical role in the economy of this nation and national development.

Agwogie noted that what his organisation intends to achieve at the end of the training is increase in productivity as science of study has shown that implementation of evidence based substance against prevention in the workplace uses absenteeism to as much as 93% because people who have the substance use disorders visit hospitals more often and as such reduce productivity of such individuals.

“In most cases they do not go to work because of their health conditions or hangover and so on. So what we intend to achieve is that the workforce which of course plays critical role in the development of every nation needs to be targeted for evidence based substances prevention and the workplace is one of the settings where substances prevention can be delivered”, he said.

Co-chair of 17 Goals Africa Initiative, Kayode Oluokun said that in December 2018, President Buhari set up a committee on substance abuse in Nigeria and the report that was released in March 2019 shows that Nigeria has the highest number of people involved in drugs with about 14.3 million people involved in substance abuse in Nigeria.