The National Agriculture Land Development Authority (NALDA) has empowered 500 rehabilitated male and female drug addicts in Kano State by giving them livestock.
Executive Secretary of NALDA, Paul Ikonne, stated, yesterday, in Abuja that 200 men and 300 women rehabilitated from drug addiction would get goats and cows.
The first phase of the empowerment, he said, would be completed in March, adding that 100 women had got three goats each while 200 youths got 100 cows.
According to him, beneficiaries will be trained in animal husbandry and financial capacity building to enhance their ability to manage their businesses.
Ikonne explained that NALDA was collaborating with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and Salamah Youth Empowerment and Enlightenment Initiative on the empowerment.
“If beneficiaries are left without empowerment, they will revert to drug abuse. This is a way of keeping them out of drugs and engaging them meaningfully. We have empowered the first 300 beneficiaries; the remaining 200 will be empowered by March,’’ Ikonne stated.
He appealed to other organisations to reach out to drug addicts and rehabilitate them, while assuring that NALDA would engage them in meaningful means of income through agricultural value chain.
Ikonne added in the statement that initiator of the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Sen. Naja’tu Muhammed (Kano Central), said the intervention was the best any parastatal agency had ever done in Kano.
