The prevalence of drugs and cultism among youths

N o part of Nigeria is spared of the malaise, including the rural areas, and substances that were once unknown have acquired notoriety among the youths, who now put them to some negative use. Worthy of note is the fact that the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) had, some days prior to the revelation of the governor, drawn attention to the worrying trend of drug abuse amongst the youths.”

Two issues have, for a long time, become a source of national embarrassment for Nigeria. These are the prevalence of drug abuse and cultism within and outside the country’s educational institutions. So prevalent have these issues become that news of cult-related activities or drug seizures by law enforcement agencies attract little reaction from the majority of Nigerians. However, two events in recent times serve as a reminder of the need for concerted efforts in the crusade against the twin evils of cultism and drug abuse.

The first occurred on March 11, 2017 when a female passenger, Odeyemi Omolara Morayo, was arrested with 1.595kg of cocaine. To be sure, arrests of that kind are not entirely new. However, what made this particular arrest to stand out was the fact that the suspect was reported to be a grandmother. At that age, the suspect was expected to be at the forefront of ensuring the impartation of the best of morals to her grandchildren, having presumably done the same with respect to her own children. Furthermore, that she attempted to export the drugs to Saudi Arabia, a country notorious for its very strict laws on narcotics use and importation is, to say the least, alarming. By the arrest in Nigeria, the NDLEA saved the suspect from a beheading upon arrest, trial and conviction in Saudi Arabia.

The second event occurred on March 18, 2017 when a senior lecturer at the University of Calabar was shot dead. Also not uncommon are cultism-related shootings of students and lecturers. In 1999, several students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, including the then Secretary General of the Students Union of the institution, were massacred by suspected cultists. That crime remains unsolved. A few years later, a lecturer at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Seun Oyedola, was abducted whilst teaching in a classroom. His mutilated corpse was recovered days later. His murder also remains unsolved. Thus, to some extent, the murder of Dr. Emmanuel Igbeng, a few days after being awarded his PhD degree, was not unprecedented. However, what stands this particular shooting apart from others is the fact that the victim is alleged to have belonged to a secret cult himself! Indeed, his murder is reported to have resulted in reprisals by members of his own group, bringing about a full-scale cult war in Calabar in which several other lives have since been lost.

In my estimation, drug abuse and trade in narcotics are closely related to the high prevalence of cultism and other violent crimes including armed robbery, kidnapping, terrorism and rape. Under the influence of narcotics, a man with the mildest of characters can exhibit psychotic traits and thereby become less inhibited towards committing the most inhumane acts. This is a fact recognised by hardened warlords in numerous conflicts which have for years become a common feature in Africa. Many young children, some as young as seven, have been turned into killers after being plied with narcotics.

It is in recognition of this link and the danger posed by drug abuse that many including government officials have continually sought to draw attention to the problem. On December 1 2016, the governor of kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El Rufai, publicly decried the danger posed by drug addiction to the youth particularly in the northern part of Nigeria. At the seminar themed: Substance Abuse: An Impediment to Gainful Employment, organised by the National Directorate of Employment, he was reported to have stated that “no part of Nigeria is spared of the malaise, including the rural areas,” and substances that were once unknown have acquired notoriety among the youths, who now put them to some negative use. Worthy of note is the fact that the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) had, some days prior to the revelation of the governor, drawn attention to the worrying trend of drug abuse amongst the youths. According to it, Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria, has the highest rate of drug abuse in the country going by figures for seizures of drugs, convictions of drug dealers and arrests of drug addicts. It alleges that in Kano State, 37 per cent of the population are drug abusers.

How and when did things become this bad?

To understand how the use of and trade in narcotics became a national problem in Nigeria, one must turn to a book titled “This Present Darkness: A history of Nigerian Organised Crime” written by Professor Stephen Ellis. At pages 121 to 123 he wrote as follows:

“Prior to 1982, the US Embassy in Lagos stated, “Nigerians played an insignificant role in the marketing of narcotics and dangerous drugs in the United States.” That changed dramatically with the rapid emigration of Nigerians in response to their country’s financial difficulties in 1982, US authorities arrested twenty-one Nigerians for narcotics offences, and the figures rose rapidly in succeeding years. A similar pattern emerged in Europe, where an official of the West German Interior ministry was reported as stating in 1983 that Hamburg was importing significant quantities of drugs from West Africa including a ship from Nigeria whose cargo included cocaine, heroin and marijuana. A year later, the director of West Germany’s customs service stated that Nigeria was one of the top six exporters of cocaine to his country. Also in 1983, Thailand witnessed its first known case of a Nigerian convicted of possessing heroin…

…Nigerian drug traffickers pioneered the technique of swallowing cocaine and heroin wrapped in condoms and carrying contraband through customs in their stomachs, for later retrieval…With Nigerians so heavily involved in drug smuggling, it was inevitable that a market for cocaine would soon emerge in Nigeria itself. In 1983 a Nigerian newspaper reported the existence of what it called “a tiny cocaine world” in fashionable Lagos society.

When the head of the Ghanaian police anti-drug unit visited Bangkok in 1986, he found “a lot of Ghanaians and Nigerians” in prison for drug offences. By 1988, some 2,000 Nigerians were reported to be serving sentences for drug offences abroad. US authorities reportedly arrested 851 Nigerians for drug offences between 1984 and 1989, by which time they reckoned that just over half of the heroin arriving at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport was being carried by Nigerians. In 1991, Nigeria’s own Ministry of Justice reported that 15,433 Nigerians had been arrested worldwide for drug offences in the previous seven years. Of these, 4,802 had been convicted. According to a statement attributed to the deputy director-general of the Ministry of External Affairs, Nigerians were the leading nationality arrested for drug offences in India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.”

To be continued

AARE AFE BABALOLA SAN, CON, LL.D, D.Litt