The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has said that it is committed to work together with the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) to combat the menace of drug abuse in the country, misuse of chemicals and alcoholism, which pose dangers to the wellbeing of Nigerians.
During a courtesy call by NAFDAC management team to NCTC headquarters in Abuja, the Director General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye said: “The purpose of the visit is to strengthen the working partnership between the two agencies which have similar interests including but not limited to the fight against drug abuse, chemical misuse and alcoholism which have been traced as major contributors to acts of terrorism”.
Expressing her agency’s readiness to work with the centre to achieve a common goal, the NAFDAC boss, who noted that the collaboration was positive, recalled how she was told about a year into her first tenure as DG by someone in a privileged position in the society that there was an abuse of tramadol.
She said her that her agency is now using “Track and Trace”, deploying the Traceability tool. NAFDAC has so far been recognised as the leading agency in Africa in terms of use of barcoding to trace where the medicine goes from the manufacturer to the end user.
Exuding self-confidence in the system, Adyeye said: “Unless the user is not on planet earth, we can trace it. We have global positioning systems that can pinpoint the medicine to the nearest location’’.
According to a statement on Sunday by NAFDAC’s Resident Media Consultant, Mr. Sayo Akintola on Sunday, the DG pointed out that this is so important because the use of narcotics can alter the minds of its users and can lead to extremism, terrorism, loss of lives and loss of livelihood.
While congratulating the National Coordinator of NCTC for the monumental achievement in building this new centre, Adeyeye said: “To me, this shows commitment to integration’’, noting that silos mentality was “what we were doing or sometimes we still do it. We cannot work in silos. It is when we work together, that we bring agencies of government together and we get a lot of results’’.
She pledged that the collaboration is guaranteed in terms of NAFDAC’s commitment and for NCTC in terms of research. She further said: “We can only do research in collaboration with other agencies or the academia which has been a major contributor to the growth of NAFDAC to higher grounds.
“This new centre to me shows integration, noting that she instituted focus groups in NAFDAC because silo mentality was what we were doing or sometimes we still do it. We cannot work in silos. It is when we work together, we bring agencies of government together that we get a lot of results’’.
The National Coordinator of NCTC, Rear Admiral Yaminu Musa (rtd.) explained that the essence of the partnership is to draw up the modalities of partnership between the two agencies, stressing that, “it’s only when we partner with you, that you become aware that things we can do on your behalf then we can be called useful’’.
According to him, the two agencies had some engagements in the past and some decisions were taken, asking rhetorically “to what extent have the decisions been implemented and what are the factors mitigating against implementation of those not implemented that we can review because we are starting a new race?’’.
He further said: “This is the right time for the two agencies to review previous activities and be able to re-strategise and inform the new government on areas that needed further push whether it is policy push or strategy categorization of plans”.
Admiral Musa added: ‘’If we do it now and we do it right we will be setting the new government on that pedestal to understanding us better and for us to be able to deliver more for the government’’.
He gave the history of the centre which started as a directorate under the Office of the National Security Adviser, and now established to stand alone. He highlighted its milestones and recognised NAFDAC as a formidable stakeholder in the centre’s evolution and development of some of its policies in addressing some issues of insecurity in the country.
He said that the centre intends to partner with research-based institutions like NAFDAC in many areas and access global support to be domiciled at relevant institutions that require it for the purpose of operational use, training purpose, and research, including equipment.
Admiral Musa disclosed that his Centre held strategy meetings with other agencies of government, noting that ‘’this is the first we are having it at the level of the two heads of government agencies.
The meeting also discussed how importation could be controlled, the necessary agencies to pass through when importing and the documents to be obtained before importation could be deemed to be lawful.
