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By Ajuwa Victor

Community leaders and stakeholders in Asaba, Oshimili South Local Government Area, have raised a grave alarm over what they describe as a fast-spreading culture of drug abuse among primary and secondary school pupils and others of school age, warning that education is being dangerously abandoned for addiction.

Multiple sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, painted a disturbing picture of a generation slipping through the cracks. According to them, many children of primary and secondary school age male and female have effectively turned their backs on classrooms, roaming the streets, some in uniform during school hours while begging for alms and indulging in illicit substances.

“The situation has gone beyond neglect, it is now a crisis,” one source said. “Children no longer see school as a priority. To them, drugs have become more appealing than education.”

Another community insider revealed that the trend has become normalized among pupils, with some openly justifying drug use as a lifestyle choice. The result, stakeholders say, is a growing army of minors disconnected from learning and dangerously exposed to criminal influences.

Hotspots identified include Ogbogonogo Market, Ibusa Junction, Market Square, Summit Junction, Asaba shopping mall and Mariam Babangida Road, all within Asaba, where schoolchildren and others of school age are seen begging motorists and passersby for money to feed and fund their addiction.

Observers say the crisis marks a sharp reversal from the gains recorded under the administration of former Delta State Governor, Emmanuel Ewetan Uduaghan, who introduced the Delta Edumarshal initiative, a bold intervention that once kept schoolchildren off the streets and firmly in classrooms.

The programme, widely credited with reducing juvenile crime, drug abuse, and truancy, was later discontinued during the tenure of Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa as governor. Since then, stakeholders say, the consequences have been severe and immediate.

“The streets have been handed back to these children,” a community leader lamented. “What we are seeing now is a direct fallout of abandoning a system that worked.”

Traditional rulers, who also spoke anonymously, described the surge in drug abuse as “deeply alarming” and called for decisive government intervention. They urged security agencies to intensify enforcement and ensure that those enabling or engaging in the menace face the full weight of the law.

Stakeholders are now calling on the Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori, to urgently revive the Delta Edumarshal initiative as part of a broader strategy to rescue the state’s education system and protect its young population from a looming social collapse.

“The future of these children, and the state itself, is at stake,” one stakeholder warned. “This is no longer just about education; it is about survival.”