DRUGS AND SUBSTANCES OF ABUSE: Are the Current Songs University Youth Singing and Dancing
By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
THE research report on drugs and substance abuse in Kenyan universities 2024 was finally launched yesterday by the interior cabinet secretary Kipchumba Murkomen where the Inspector General of police Douglas Kanja was present.
The Bomas of Kenya was the space where the report was unveiled in full glare of media cameras yesterday (February 17, 2025).
I had the privilege to witness the launch having been part of the team that designed and implemented the research protocol.
I am happy that professors from 17 universities – public and private – contributed their knowledge and skills to make the report what it is.
Thanks to NACADA for placing research at the forefront of its programming.
I hope other government agencies will emulate NACADA in using science or emperical data for developing solutions to our challenges as a nation.
We are all aware of the challenge of youth bulge in Africa. The growing population of young people in Africa is premised to hit 830 million to 1 billion by 2050.
This is both a blessing for the region and a curse at the same time. A blessing in terms of human resource capacity and market for goods and services and growth to Africas economy.
Conversely, a curse because of the vices that are inflicting our youth today. A growing population of youth abusing drugs and substances for example is a huge loss for the continent.
The consequences of drug and substance abuse among the youth are already with us. Addiction and mental health challenges characterise majority of our youth, in and outside institutions of learning.
The observation that most youth in our universities abuse drugs and substances is already a copper nail being driven by a titanium hammer into our heads.
Universities are the shapers of future leaders. Accordingly, the results of the report sounds the bells for all of us to do something to mitigate or stop this growing drug and substance epidemic in our institutions of higher learning.
The recommendations in the report are very clear. We need a Whole-of-Society [WoS] approach in tackling the drug menace in our universities. I would urge all of us, lovers of the future and science to grab a copy of the report and read.
“Data doesn’t lie and if it does, then there is no any other better way to unearth the truth.”
I pen off by congratulating NACADA for shaping the future of our youth.
By being candid in preventing our youth who are actually over 46% [22M] of the population, from drug and substance abuse.
“NACADA is actually the savier for the future of Kenya.”
Where efforts to mitigate drugs and substance abuse fail, the future of our country will be lived by zombies.
I call upon all of us to give the youth a song to sing, because if we don’t do so, they will sing and dance their own songs, including those of drugs and substance of abuse.
By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri
Dean & Consultant Sociologist
PWANI UNIVERSITY
