The management of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) has declared that drug abusers among the newly admitted students are likely to forfeit their admission.
In an announcement of guidelines for online screening of Direct Entry (DE) candidates for the 2017/2018 academic session made public on Friday, the university stated its zero tolerance to drug abuse.
“The University shall withdraw the admission of newly admitted students that test positive for drug use whenever the University conducts the test, either before or after registration,” the management said.
At a forum with the News Agency of Nigeria last week, the immediate past Vice Chancellor of UNILAG, Professor Rahamon Bello had disclosed that the university had provided a drug test kit in its medical centre to examine students suspected to be on hard drugs.
“Drug abuse is a major problem for every institution, particularly, those in the cities. We have gone ahead in the University of Lagos to address it.
“With the test kit, anyone who is suspected, his or her urine or blood depending on what we want to do, is collected for test.
“The thing about drug is that when you take it, it will be in your blood for a longtime , so you cannot say , I did not use it once the test kit detects it.
“Before, we start using the test kit , everyone we picked denied using drug since we could not find any evidence,” he said.
The Professor of Chemical Engineering added that with the test kit, the university has been able to pin down victims, but granted them amnesty.
He said that although the university’s regulation provided that any student found dealing with drug should be expelled, the management had to warn and rehabilitate them.
He also revealed that about 100 students of the university were detected to be using hard drugs in 2016.
It is evident the regulation drug abuse is not being relaxed under the new management headed by Professor Toyin Ogundipe. With the announcement in the 2017/2018 DE admission process, new students found to be drug abusers would likely lose the admission offer.
