Obiora was a very bright student with a bright future, which got ruined. One day, he returned from the boarding school with a patched school uniform. His father thought it was mere torn trouser. His mother had died in a car accident before he finished his primary school. Unknown to his father, the patched trouser was an identifier for the cult he signed up to in his secondary school. He managed to finish his secondary school with not too impressive results but enough to get him admitted in a course in the university.
Second year into the course, he came home one evening threatened his father to hand him over some amount of money or he would kill him. His father afraid; handed him said amount but he never returned to school but with gangs. He had also started taking drugs. By the time his father had stroke and his eventual death, Obiora’s life had been ruined. Going in and out of rehab centres, draining all savings, Obiora refused to be cured as he relapsed each time he was discharged.
This is what has become of the life of many youths. From the secondary school and in some cases from the primary school, their life is stolen from them by people guided by evil either within the school by the senior students or peers or outside influence from the society.
Drug use and cultism are prevalent among the youths in Nigeria but in this article, I want to be particular about the drug use by the youths of the South-East.
In 2018, in a viral documentary by the BBC named, “Sweet Sweet Codeine”, it exposed how youths are addicted to codeine through the consumption of cough syrup. The documentary prompted the Federal Government to “ban cough syrup with codeine.” But that may have been a scratch on the extent the cough syrup and other drugs get to the hands of these youths. Where these are not found, they turn to awkward means ‘to get high’ including sniffing burnt tyres or dry human faeces, dry cassava and pawpaw leaf and so much more.
In Drug Use in Nigeria 2018 report, “prevalence of any drug use in the {South-east} zone is estimated at 13.8 per cent of the population or 1.5 million people aged 15-64… {with} cannabis, heroin, cocaine use and non-medical use of cough syrups (containing codeine or dex-tromethorphan) …Imo State in the zone has a past year prevalence of any drug use exceeding the national estimates.”
Prevalence of drug use in Nigeria by geopolitical zones and states, 2017 Photo: UNODC
Youths as young as 17 have become hardened and are into cultism and drug abuse. They kill themselves in rivalry and wield guns instead of books. South East had become a hot bed as recently there are reports of shooting and killings over cult rivalry thereby cutting lives short. This year, about “60 youths have lost their lives to cult activities”, in Anambra alone.
Recently, a 21 year-old Chidimma confessed to killing a man under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Chidimma is not alone in this lifestyle. Many youths are captured in the scourge that is affecting our society.
On June 19, Chioma, 26, a graduate of medicine from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, “confessed to baking cookies with skunk.” Unsuspecting children will consume the cookies and will become addicted to drugs just at an early age and they would become dependent on this without parents knowing.
With the resultant effects on both young boys and girls engaging in criminality, it is about time every stakeholder becomes alarmed and take this as a personal fight. The fight will start from home.
Parenting
The breakdown of the society takes its root from the breakdown of the family. Many parents have abandoned the moral and general development of the children, and some would prevent teachers from filling the vacuum. They are more bothered in the pursuit of economic matters and think their responsibility starts and ends with the provision of amenities and payment of fees. The quest for materialism is one of the issues affecting the growth of the child from the home. Child’s development is more than the provision of comfort. The family must take back its role.
Church
The church seems to have also abandoned its role in the society for the pursuit of materialism. There is no beauty in the church building if the churchgoers are not morally developed and are sick. There is no preaching of prosperity or sowing of seed to a brain ravaged by drug abuse. The church should take back its duty in the moral development of the people especially the youths.
Government
The government has resources available to them to carry out massive enlightenment programmes. The duties of the state government and commission for youths, information, education and health, in particular, are not only within the spheres of sports, pandemic or academic excellence, they must widen their scope to the development and awareness, in the curriculum, classroom, in every forum, for the youths, on the disadvantages of drug abuse and its attendant effects. They should also provide access for the prevention and treatment for drug use disorders.
The Traditional Leaders
The traditional leaders have to ensure that the youths are developed in tandem with the cultural values of their various towns and communities, call any deviant youth to order and place controls that can curb the extent of drug use and violence that comes with it.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo
The duties of Ohanaeze should not be primarily about politics but also about the welfare and the development of the Igbo youths. The drug use prevalence should also be paramount in their roles.
The Media
The media both foreign and local and especially Nollywood, which in a very long time, in their bid to showcase the oddity in the society, have also helped in normalizing and entrenching certain characters that hitherto are considered aberration in the society. Yet, the media should continue to highlight the bad side of the drug use and the criminality that comes with it.
The stakeholder list is in-exhaustive as it should be a duty for all towards rescinding the scourge of drug abuse, cultism and violence in our society. As the future of the youths is attacked by the vice, the future of our people is attacked. The youths are the future leaders, future parents and future stakeholders. If nothing is done to curb the prevalent menace, our future will simply slip away.
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