Mr David Briggs, Chairman, Rivers State Senior Secondary Schools Board (RSSSSB) has advised parents to be proactive and vigilant towards checking drug addiction, cultism and prostitution among young adults in the state.
Briggs, who gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Port Harcourt, said there was the need to restore societal values.
He said the fast rate at which young adults in primary and secondary schools indulge in immorality was alarming and needed urgent attention to correct the anomaly.
“While most parents are busy politicking, chasing business and innovations, they have failed to address the high moral decay in our institutions of learning.
“Moral decay per say, is actually not an institutional decay but a personalised behaviour and conduct.
“Our wards are most vulnerable as moral decay runs in most of the schools in the country, in fact, most if not all the schools are either engaged in cultism and drug abuse.’
“These of course, are presently the highest social menace in our society. It has become very difficult to come up with a comparative analysis.
“But I must say that this societal problem has become so alarming among boys and girls even up to the primary schools,” he said.
The schools board chairman revealed that several unscheduled visits to some schools across the state showed how addicted some children were involved in drugs, cultism, violence and prostitution.
“It is sad that even in some primary schools, cultism activities are already being planted by some unscrupulous elements.
“Recently, I was on an unscheduled visit to some public schools in the state with a security team and we did an on-the-spot raid or bag search where I randomly brought out four students to exchange their bags and they were asked to empty those bags.
“During this raid, we found kitchen knives, explosives, Indian hemp, in fact the Indian hemp were found in the bag belonging to a JSS 3 student.
“We even saw condoms in both female and male bags, this show the high moral decadence in our institutions” he said.
Briggs, however, said that a greater part of the blame should go to the parents whom, he said ,nowadays spend less time with their children and wards.
“If a parent cannot inculcate good value in a child that spends more time outside the school, they should not blame the schools or the government,” he said.
He urged parents to be alive to their responsibilities, revealing new alternative ways to detect drug addiction in young adults.
“Parents should begin to search under the beds of the children and wards because once they can’t afford the cheap drugs like Tramadol or Indian hemp; they resort to drinking their own urine.
“These addicts urinate into containers hide them under their beds and allow it to ferment for three days and they drink this toxic substance.
“If your septic tanks develop a crack, be on the lookout if someone is not sniffing the gas from the broken area.
“Also, watch a child who is always covering his nose with a handkerchief, he may be sniffing petrol (PMS),” he said. (NAN)
