The Kwara State University (KWASU) Malete has said that it was collaborating with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to commence drug test for its students in order to discourage drug abuse amongst them.
The deputy vice chancellor of KWASU, Prof. Mashood Jimba, disclosed this during an interaction with journalists in Ilorin, the state capital.
He said that 500 students were tested on the first day of the commencement of the drug test in the institution’s campus in Malete.
While praising the NDLEA for taking the war on drug abuse to schools, Prof. Jimba said: “Now, our universities are doing drug tests for their students. As a matter of fact, KWASU is the second university in Nigeria to start that programme.”
“We recently held a flag-off ceremony of the drug test programme, organised by the Kwara State government in collaboration with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.
“This is an effort to identify those who are abusers of drugs and anyone who is detected to be using drugs through the test will be taken for counselling and rehabilitation. The counselling is free while the cost of the rehabilitation will be shouldered by the family of the student.
“On the day of the flag-off of the drug test, over 500 students were tested and none of them tested positive for drug use,” Jimba stated.
He added: “We, as a school, are trying our best to tackle the problem of drug abuse on our campus, especially through the intelligence gathering mechanism.”
