Kaduna mothers commend FG over ban on codeine

Mothers in Kaduna State under the auspices of Girl Child Concerns (GCC) have commended the Federal Government for banning cough syrup with codeine in Nigeria, saying it will go a long way in curtailing the menace of drug abuse in the country.

The Chief Executive Officer of GCC, Dr. Mairo Mandara disclosed this during the screening of the documentary titled “Sweet, Sweet Codeine”, by BBC Africa in Kaduna.

According to her, codeine, which is supposed to be a drug to treat cough infection, has now been turned to soft drink by many without minding the negative effect of it on their person.

Many of them, she said, have become addicts that cannot do without the drug, adding that “Many crimes especially domestic crimes are committed under the influence of the drug.”

She therefore called on the government to map out a strategy to mop the codeine syrup from the society.

In his own remarks, Pharmacists Aliyu Jibril of Osbud Pharmacy Ltd, said lots of people are too poor to visit the hospital where professionals will prescribe drugs for them, but they decided on selfmedication by patronizing the available drug hawkers buying codeine and others from them.

“Our people are also ignorant of what they take because it baffled me how educated person would patronize a hawker who can’t even differentiate what he is selling. So, if such person complains of cough the next drug made available to him is codeine,” he said.

Speaking earlier, Hajiya Farida Sada of Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria, (FOMWAN) said as mothers and wives, they feel the greater pains of what codeine addiction is doing to the family.

Hajiya Sada said “It is not enough to ban codeine, but there must be a political will to ensure that suppliers will not go underground to import it illegally into the country.”