President Tests Negative For Drugs And Illegal Substances

It is the mark of a good leader to govern by example; and a president has demonstrated this by submitting himself to be tested for drugs and other illegal substances.

And by the time the result came out incidentally, he had tested negative to illegal drugs.

This is the testimony of Liberian President Joseph Boakai, who last Wednesday, underwent the test in fulfilment of an earlier promise.

It was indeed a typical case of leading by example,

He made known his desire to submit for the test this during his address to the legislature on 29 January, just a week after he was sworn in as president.

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The man had made the move as a way of showing other people in the country it was good to shun drugs.

This was to motivate not only the Vice-President Jeremiah Kpan Koung but other officials; all of whom lined up and were tested, under the supervision of the Liberia Ministry of Health.

 “It is the fulfillment of my commitment made that we will leave no stone unturned in combating the prevalence of drugs and other substance abuse in Liberia”, President Boakai said, do ring his address t the legislature.

In addition, he has declared drug abuse a “national health emergency”.

Youths in the West African country have had a negative run with substance abuse.

In his article in the English edition of Le Mode, titled Liberia’s youth shattered by another war: Drugs, Coumba Kane, narrated the extent of youth indulgence in drugs, in Liberia which had a bitter experience with civil war of 14 year, between 1990 and 2003.

He observed amongst others, that  drug use has skyrocketed and that though authorities are taking stock of the extent of the crisis, they were being hampered by a lack of health facilities.

According to him: “It’s a slice of hell edged with pure white sand. In West Point, a troubled township in the south of Monrovia, Liberia, mountains of rotting waste have created a noxious stench.

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“Its 80,000 inhabitants must make their way through filthy alleyways during this rainy season. People here are aware of the coming submersion of a coastline that is being swallowed up a little more each day by the Atlantic.

“But rising sea levels are not the only threat. Epidemics, too, have repeatedly engulfed West Point, including cholera, Ebola and tuberculosis. Those who survived have now been forced to confront a new disaster: drugs”, he wrote..