President John Dramani Mahama used Ghana’s Eid al-Adha celebrations in Accra yesterday to deliver a blunt charge to the country’s youth to stay off drugs and remain focused on building their future and contributing to national development.
“I urge you to avoid drug addiction,” he told thousands of faithful gathered before the National Chief Imam, Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu, and Muslim leaders across the country. “Our nation needs young people who are focused on education, skills, hard work, entrepreneurship, and service to humanity.”
The President’s warning resonates powerfully against the backdrop of a revelation made just days earlier by Interior Minister, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, who disclosed that out of 100,000 applicants screened for Security Service Medicals, more than 4,000 failed drug tests while an additional 2,000 were disqualified on mental health grounds, a combined total of over 6,000 rejected applicants.
The figures paint a sobering picture of a generation under siege, and lend the President’s Eid admonition a weight that goes far beyond religious observance.
Drawing on the spiritual lessons of Eid al-Adha, which commemorates Prophet Mohamed’s supreme act of obedience, sacrifice, and self-restraint, Mahama tied personal discipline directly to national progress.
“The occasion calls on us to sacrifice, be selfless, not hate one another, not to be greedy,” he said, urging young Ghanaians to channel the same spirit of submission and devotion into their civic conduct and daily choices.
He also held up the National Chief Imam as a living example of the virtues worth emulating, “humility, compassion, simplicity, tolerance, and peace-building”, and called on youth to remain “disciplined, law-abiding, respectful, and responsible citizens.”
The President further pointed to his government’s 24-hour economy policy, apprenticeship programmes, and industrial transformation agenda as concrete pathways available to young Ghanaians who choose discipline over destruction.
