YOUNG PHARMACISTS IN ANAMBRA CAMPAIGN AGAINST DRUG ABUSE, ELECTION VIOLENCE

YOUNG PHARMACISTS IN ANAMBRA CAMPAIGN AGAINST DRUG ABUSE, ELECTION VIOLENCE

A group under the aegis of Young Pharmacists Group (YPG), Anambra State, Saturday, January 26, in Awka, staged a march against illicit drug and election violence.

The group, numbering over 200, marched with placards bearing different inscriptions, from the popular Alex Ekwueme Square, Awka, up to the Government House, then, to the UNIZIK Temporary Site Junction and to some other parts of the capital city.

The group shared fliers and leaflets to individuals and motorists as a way of educating the people of the need to stay away from drug and other vices such as election violence.

Speaking during the exercise tagged: “Illicit Drug and Associated Election Violence”, Pharm. Ezedei Obinna, the Project Coordinator and General Secretary of the Young Pharmacist Group, said the exercise was a way the young pharmacists were contributing their own quota towards ensuring drug free and violence free society. He said that people tend to abuse drugs such as cocaine, tramadol, marijuana, among other illicit drugs, which, according to him, force the people abusing such drugs to engage in election violence and other related electoral vices such as ballot box snatching and thuggery, among other things.

Addressing newsmen during the march, one of the leaders of the group, Hon. Pharm. Valentine Chibuzor Okaa, the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Willie Obiano on Pharmaceutical Matters, said that the objective of the exercise was to sensitize the general public on the need for a drug free society; and the dire need to approach 2019 election without violence.

According to him, “There are drugs that are taken abusively by members of the society. These drugs affect the psychology of those abusing them. Youths and adults that approach election under the influence of drugs, will definitely be violent; so, this is our own way of sensitizing people of the need to have a society devoid of illicit drug; as well as having elections without violence.”

He advised young people to stay out of drug, and not to allow themselves to be used as thugs during elections. “With that we shall achieve a drug free and violence free society”, he said.

Another highpoint of the exercise was an endorsement of two young pharmacists, who are members of the Anambra State House of Assembly by the group.

The YPG reasoned that the two legislators, Obinna Chris Emeneka, representing Anambra East Constituency; and Nnamdi Okafor, representing Awka South I Constituency, who were their members, did the group proud by representing their respective constituencies efficiently; and having picked tickets of their political parties, they were endorsed by the group to go for another tenure, since “one good term deserves another.”