The war on drug wages in Kano

Aliyu Musa

A few weeks ago the BBC Hausa broadcast in its weekly programme Adikon Zamani an interview with two young women hooked on hard drugs. From the discussion, presented as usual by the articulate Fatima Zahra Umar, the women’s accounts suggest the tip of the iceberg of a problem spiralling out of control, given the gravity of the havoc hard drugs are causing in Northern Nigeria. And many of the victims, sadly, are young people, especially women.

It was not the first time Kano, where the two interviewees apparently come from, is in the spotlight for this reason. I can’t remember precisely when, but not many years ago the BBC Hausa broadcast a similar report, although on that occasion many interviewees participated and all of them confessed to being hooked on hard drugs, citing various reasons, particularly poverty. So why is Kano in the spotlight again?

Kano, for several reasons, is the heart of the north. It is arguably Nigeria’s most populous city. And, although now a caricature of its once wealthy self, it is the home state of the wealthiest black man, according to Forbes ranking, on earth, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. It is also home to many wealthy Nigerians and two former Nigeria’s heads of state.

While all this may not be an accurate yardstick for measuring affluence, especially its average distribution in the state, Kano, however, has no business being the hub of a steadily growing number of the society’s deprived who, ostensibly, take solace in hard drugs, away from the reality of their deprivation.It is important, though, to resist the temptation of restricting the definition of deprivation to financial distress, which is what poverty is generally seen as.

In the programme earlier broadcast, among the multiple interviewees were many who cited poverty as the main reason they took to drugs. But then this raises the question of affordability; if one is so poverty stricken to the point of using hard drugs as an escape route, how is one able to fund the addiction?

A participant whose account I vividly remember told of his joblessness, how he wakes up each morning to this hopelessness and, so, he runs around for money, as little as N100, with which he buys cheap hard drugs. These cheap drugs, some of which are normal cough syrup and flu medication, are readily available over the counter. But there are also many thoroughly hard drugs that are illegally procured at affordable prices.

The other participants also told of similar situations and their bids to dock-shove, leading to drug addiction and more complications. But what came out of that discussion and the recent one is a need to look beyond financial impoverishment and focus, also, on other forms of deprivation. For example, the two female interviewees in Adikon Zamani mentioned problems like collapse of relationships and how the addiction fills up the vacuum love has vacated.

Both women also told of how, at the early stage of their addiction, they tried in vain to hide the habit from their families. But, they said, when the families were unsuccessful in stopping them, they resorted to prayers. Yet the addiction soared. And this was because there were always willing ‘accomplices’ to help them feed the addiction.

In a follow-up programme the following week a local peddler, who remorselessly admitted her role in helping the addicts keep their stock replenished at all times, was interviewed. Before venturing into this ‘business’, she said, her attempts at a breakthrough elsewhere, in legitimate business, were a colossal failure. But thanks to addicts in Kano, whose vulnerability she feasts on, she has now broken down the barriers of poverty even though, for every Naira she earns, a life is ruined.

Yet this peddler and her ilk, as daring as the revelations are, would continue to walk the streets, without any fear of apprehension or retribution, and be rewarded handsomely for destroying more lives.

But whether we realise it or not, with this trend in Kano and across the region, we are dealing with a ticking bomb, which could go off at any time. And the women’s stories are a direct indictment of our society, especially as we fold our hands and watch the depletion of a generation. This is even more sobering if we consider the peddler’s claim that most of her clients are women and that women are fast outrunning men in drug abuse, in terms of number and intensity.

There is no better time to address the problem than now. We could start by regulating what medication can or cannot be obtained over the counter and what quantity of the legal ones can be procured at any given time. And from that we could progress to tackling the menace of the greedy paddlers, their sponsors and clients.

This article is also published in the Blueprint newspaper of Saturday December 2, 2017.