Apart from being the commercial nerve centre of the country, Lagos is also a hotspot for trade in illicit drug substances and abuse. SUBAIR MOHAMMED went on the trail of the traders. His report:
With a conservative estimate of 4.5 million illicit drug users scattered across Lagos State, the Centre of Excellence, according to the chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), General Muhammad Buba Marwa (rtd), accounts for 30 per cent of the total volume of illicit drug consumption in the country.
That figure represents close to five per cent of the entire population of the state.
Marwa, a former military administrator of Lagos State, gave the statistics during his recent official visit to the state command of the NDLEA where he was quoted as saying, “About 15 million Nigerians deal in or use of one or more forms of illicit drug. This means about 4.5 million people in Lagos state are into illicit drugs.”
As alarming as the official number might sound, findings by Saturday Tribune from selected locations in Lagos revealed that the figure allocated to the state is perhaps grossly underwhelming, as a lot of residents were also discovered to be massively abusing many illegal substances, especially performance enhancers which are code-named to hide their true identities and limit their public existence only to the initiate.
These code names, which range from police ranks and designations in the clergy to fruits and vegetables, include ‘DSP’ for Codeine, ‘ASP’ for a more powerful brand of Codeine, ‘Reverend Father’ for Revlon tablet, ‘Vegetable’ for marijuana, ‘Gum’, ‘Madara’ (an intoxicant common with Hausa people in the state), in its raw form, ‘Loud’ (another popular Hausa intoxicant), Tramadol and Colorado.
Overdose deaths at Agege abattoir
In trailing communities where these drugs are being massively used, intelligence gathering led Saturday Tribune to Agege abattoir where the daily spectacle is – unrestrained movement of traders, buyers, cattle, buses and motorcycles in and out of the slaughterhouse.
At the core of these activities are young male and female load carriers, mainly from the Northern part of the country, who offer to assist butchers, traders and buyers to convey their stocks and purchases from the slaughter slab to nearby stalls and car parks for fees ranging from N100 to N500, depending on the volume of the loads. They also load Eko meat vans.
According to a butcher who identified himself simply as Taiwo, the Agege abattoir is one of the black spots in Lagos where illicit drugs and marijuana are openly abused by load carriers in an attempt to gain extra strength for the job.
Drug abuse, he claimed, is so rampant among youths, particularly those of Northern origin, at the abattoir that one or two of them almost regularly die of drug overdose within a space of six months.
Taiwo cited the case of a certain 23-year-old load carrier who died in his sleep as a result of substance abuse at the abattoir on February 25. He said the young man from the North had taken an overdose of Colorado in anticipation of a large volume of work which was not forthcoming before he died of hyper-activeness.
He said: “Until his death, Adamu was bustling with enhanced energy. Like his peers, he was involved in substance abuse which he believed would give him additional strength to carry more loads and earn more money. But he died in the process. Whenever such death is recorded, we inform the DPO of the abattoir police post and he, in turn, gets across to officials of the general hospital for the evacuation of the corpse.
“The night before his death, he was high on drug. I saw him seated alone on the slab along the waste receptacle at the abattoir. His eyes were glassy with increased energy and confidence. He was hyperactive and full of strength but because of the restriction on supply of foodstuffs and cattle from the North then, he had no way of exerting his strength. We returned the following day to discover his lifeless body lying close to the waste receptacle. It was another case of substance abuse.
“There is a shady slab where the load carriers relax after a hard day’s work to take a nap after they must have taken the substance and leave at dusk to source for what to eat. On this particular occasion, eight of them had slept on the slab all through the night till the afternoon of Friday. They woke up one after the other but Adamu was left to continue sleeping. They didn’t know he had died in his sleep as a result of intake of excess Colorado.
“A security guard on duty, who had been going up and down running errands for his office, was the one that discovered the corpse of the young man which had already attracted flies and other insects.
“The rate at which these young Hausa boys at the abattoir get involved in substance abuse is alarming. Within a space of six months, this was the second death we had recorded in the abattoir. They consume different kinds of substance to be able to work but they end up killing themselves.
“You need to visit the abattoir in the evening. You will see them milling around and smoking weed, Loud, Gum and undiluted Madara, Tramadol, Colorado and all sorts of other substances to enhance their strength. They don’t hide it; they do it in the open at night.
“They don’t sell drugs at the abattoir. There is an area within Agege called Akerele where they buy the drugs and bring it down to the abattoir to inhale.”
Tramadol inside paracetamol pack
Corroborating Taiwo’s claims, another butcher, Azeez, revealed that sales and abuse of illicit drugs go unhindered daily at the abattoir under the nose of the management and the police without them noticing.
He said: “The drug dealers, we see them every day. Some of them are stationed at the main gate of the abattoir, while others hawk on the street. The uninitiated will think they are only selling sex enhancement tablets but they are actually selling hard drugs.
“They repackage drugs like Tramadol and Codeine and put the Tramadol in the pack of paracetamol. You know there are different sizes of Tramadol and its strength is dependent on the size. So, these guys would put one drug in the pack of another tablet so the onlooker would think the person making a purchase is buying paracetamol, whereas it is a banned substance.
“The same thing goes for Codeine, they repackage it and change the bottle in case of possible raid by the police. This has gone on unchecked for many years at the abattoir. The management needs to arrest the situation.
“You can see the negative effects of substance abuse on the abusers. Look at that man (pointing at a young madman), he ran mad as a result of drug abuse. He was one of the load carriers here. When the drug started affecting his mental health, he began to sit at the entrance of the bank where he wraps his marijuana and takes drags off of it. When he is hungry, there is a woman selling food within the premises, he would sit at the entrance of the canteen to beg for food. They end up becoming a waste to themselves and the society. They start by using the performance-enhancing drugs but end up getting addicted to them and losing their minds.
“The government needs to look into this issue. It particularly needs to stop those hawking drugs on the streets. They are not restricted to the abattoir, they are everywhere across the state. They sell drugs that damage the future of young people but nobody is doing anything to stop the menace.”
Surulere’s ‘Animal Kingdom’
There exists a den of drug peddlers and other criminals in the Babs Animashaun area of Surulere. The place is referred to as the ‘Animal Kingdom’. ‘Animal Kingdom’ happens to be the title of an American crime drama series. Located beside Surulere’s ‘Animal Kingdom’ are a popular shopping complex and a shawarma spot.
A clique led by the trio of ‘Dagrin’, ‘Winner’ and ‘Iku’ holds sway in the Surulere district and its environs, selling hard drugs and banned substances to Yahoo boys, prostitutes and other criminal-minded persons who, when high on drug, unleash terror on residents and visitors to the shopping complex and the shawarma spot.
With the aid of a guide, Saturday Tribune visited the area around 2.00 p.m. last Monday to have a feel of the atmosphere. The atmosphere was tense. One of them, also a suspected cultist, was drenched in his own blood.
What happened? Is it another drug related fight? An eyewitness explained: “This is not another drug war. This fight started around 1.00 p.m. on Monday. It was occasioned by the theft of a motorcycle. Three of the loyalists of ‘Dagrin’ stole a Bajaj motorcycle worth N250, 000 and sold it to a young man for N20,000. Two of the three thieves immediately shared the money and left out the third person. Out of anger, the third person exposed the two as responsible for the missing motorcycle. Men from Bode Thomas police station arrested the snitch and went for the other two.
“When ‘Dagrin’ heard of the development, out of solidarity to his loyalists and customers, he went after those that attacked the two thieves and in the process, he was attacked and overpowered. He was struck with machetes and broken bottles..
“Those hard boys patronising the Animal Kingdom have been disturbing the peace of the community for a very long time. They rob customers of the shopping complex and neither do they spare customers of the shawarma spot. There is hardly any week that we will not hear of one or more of visitors to the complex and bar being robbed. I think it is time the government did something about it.”
NDLEA speaks
NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Mr Femi Babafemi, told Saturday Tribune that definite actions were in the pipeline as routine raids continue.
He said: “We are aware of the existence of the drug joints you mentioned and even more in some parts of Lagos and we have continued to raid them on a regular basis.
“Such black spots are usually patronised by drug users, area boys, prostitutes, cult groups and other criminal elements in the society. Over the years, such places have often been raided by security operatives, especially the police and the NDLEA. Our Lagos State command has sustained a regular general raid of the black spots all over Lagos.
“However, the challenge in such operations is that majority of the suspects are users that are arrested with negligible quantity of exhibits or none at all and may not be prosecuted but only subjected to counseling. Once the dealer in any of the joints is arrested and prosecuted, a new dealer emerges and takes over such joints. Many of the drug users in these joints are jobless, homeless and petty criminals that live on the streets and that is why we have been trying to work with the Lagos State government on how to end the scourge.
“I can tell you that the chairman of NDLEA, Gen. M. B. Marwa, was in Lagos just about two weeks ago to meet with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to discuss some of these challenges and how best we can work together to rid the state of the drug menace, and we are hopeful that definite actions will follow soon so that we can continue to pursue both drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction efforts across the state.
“But in the area of law enforcement, we will continue with our offensive actions against all the drug joints across the state. For instance, in a single sting operation a few days ago, 297kg of cannabis sativa was recovered from a notorious drug joint called Akerele in Agege Local Government Area of the state.
“In all, between January and March 2021, our Lagos State command has carried out major operations in Agege, Ikorodu, Lekki, Okokomaiko and other parts of the state and dismantled major drug syndicates, arrested notorious suspects and seized large quantities of various types of hard drugs.
“The summary of the arrests and seizures from January, 2021 to date is as follows: Ninety (90) suspects comprising of eighty-two (82) males and eight (8) females were arrested while over 600 kg of various types of drugs were seized. The breakdown of seizure is as follows: Cannabis Sativa 577.020 kg; Cocaine 0.183kg, Heroin 0.003 kg, Tramadol 36.202kg (7,697) tablets, Rohypnol 0.208kg (646) tablets, Diazapam 0.462kg (2066) tablets, Exol-5, 0.52kg (316) tablets, making a total of 614.396kg of different types of hard drugs seized.
“As earlier stated, we are always ready to work with the state government to subdue this drug challenge.”
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