A fake pharmacist and drug dealer, Nura Aliyu, has been arrested in possession of six cartons of suspected codeine syrup and about 142 empty packs in Katsina State. His arrest is coming barely weeks after the Federal Government banned codeine in Nigeria.
While parading the suspect, Katsina state commissioner of Police, Mohammed Wakili, said he was arrested along Senator Abba Ali Road by Mohd Dikko Stadium.
Represented by the Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Gambo Isah, the Police boss said: “He was stopped and during Police search, this quantum of syrup suspected to be codeine was recovered in his vehicle.“
Recall that when the ban on codeine was placed few weeks ago, many Nigerian reacted, some of whom include two serving senators and Seun Kuti, an Afrobeat musician.
Seun Kuti:
“Igbo has been banned since forever (unjustly) but e still dey everywhere. The reactionary ban of codeine by the FG only means drug dealers will make more money from it. It can’t affect supply.”
Senator Shehu Sani:
“Codeine is an opium that symbolizes our social dislocation and societal collapse.What we have is a system that has over the years ostracized and mentally deformed a generation, dispatching them to seek solace in aphrodisiac .
“Codeine is a problem and the bigger problem remains a corrosive socio economic order that created a state of hopelessness.We must continue to work hard in order to change it so as to give meaning to the lives of our young ones.”
Reacting to the order, Senator Ben Bruce wrote:
”Instead of banning codeine, Nigeria should ban the bad governance that makes young people so desperate that they have nothing to look forward to in life. We can’t keep insulting them for being uneducated when we don’t build schools or as lazy when we don’t provide jobs for them”.
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