By Abiola Adeniyi
In the bustling classrooms of secondary schools in Nigeria, where the chatter of teenagers often masks a storm of unseen struggles, a troubling trend has taken root. Psychoactive substances from marijuana to prescription opioids are weaving their way into adolescent lives, reshaping futures long before they have even begun. A recent study published in the South African Journal of Psychiatry by Dr. Tolulope Olagoke Kolawole reveals that 13.9 percent of surveyed secondary school students in Lagos, Nigeria have tried addictive substances. But perhaps the most alarming statistic is this: almost 40 percent of respondents could not name a single long-term complication of substance use. For Dr. Kolawole, a Nigerian public health scholar and advocate, this gap in knowledge is more than a data point. It is a ticking time bomb. “We cannot continue with one-off campaigns or awareness talks that are easily forgotten the moment the microphone is switched off,” he insists. Instead, he has charted out an intensive, community-rooted, youth-led and expert-supported solution: The Establishment of Drug-Free Clubs in every Nigerian secondary school.
This is not a perfunctory extracurricular activity. In Kolawole’s vision, these clubs would become mini-institutions of resilience within the schools: student-led but rigorously supervised, powered by peer mentorship, professional counselling, and expert lectures from doctors, pharmacists, and behavioral scientists. Unlike the sporadic sensitization programs that barely scratch the surface, Drug-Free Clubs, he argues, would provide continuity, structure, and ownership, arming students with not just knowledge but also practical coping strategies in the face of peer pressure. The premise is simple but revolutionary: use the same peer influence that drives adolescents toward risky behaviors to instead drive them toward healthier, drug-free lifestyles.
One of the most potent drivers of adolescent drug use is peer influence. In the corridors of secondary schools, choices are often dictated less by parental wisdom and more by the nod of a friend or the taunt of a classmate. Dr. Kolawole believes that this same force, often harnessed for destruction, can be redirected towards resilience. “Peer groups are not inherently negative,” he explains. “They are powerful engines of influence. The challenge is what direction they are steered.” Drug-Free Clubs, as he envisions them, would transform peer groups into safe havens of accountability, where students learn to shape one another’s choices positively. The model borrows from successful youth-led initiatives around the world, from the “peer educator” movement in HIV prevention campaigns in East Africa to student-driven anti-bullying clubs in the United States. The difference is that Kolawole’s proposal goes further, embedding counselling, mentorship, and consistent expert-led training directly into the fabric of school life.
Each club he proposes would operate like a living curriculum. Weekly meetings would become spaces for frank conversations, brainstorming outreach projects, and staging creative interventions: debates, plays, essay competitions, even short films all designed by students, for students. The result would not just be awareness, but a culture of prevention that grows stronger with each graduating class. But these clubs would not be left to teenage enthusiasm alone. At the helm, each group would have a faculty advisor, a teacher trained specifically in substance use prevention and intervention. This teacher would not be a passive overseer, but an active mentor ensuring the accuracy of information, the safety of discussions, and the integration of evidence-based strategies.
To deepen the knowledge base, Kolawole proposes that schools regularly bring in external experts: doctors, pharmacists, addiction researchers, and behavioral scientists who can unpack complex topics in age-appropriate language. These experts, often drawn from nearby teaching hospitals, state ministries of health, and international NGOs, would expose students to a wide spectrum of issues: from the neurobiology of addiction to the legal and social costs of drug abuse. Such continuity and seriousness of approach would, in Kolawole’s words, “bridge the gulf between what our students know and what they desperately need to understand.”
If the Drug-Free Clubs are the visible face of Dr. Kolawole’s proposal, then counselling is its backbone. Beneath the debates, performances, and awareness drives lies an often-silenced reality: many teenagers experimenting with drugs are already battling dependency, shame, or peer pressure they cannot speak about openly. Kolawole insists that every club must offer private, evidence-based counselling sessions delivered weekly by trained psychologists specializing in adolescent mental health and substance use. These sessions would be strictly confidential, providing a safe refuge for students to express fears, ask questions, and seek help without the looming threat of punishment or exposure.
In a society where substance use is often treated as a moral failing rather than a health issue, the emphasis on discretion is groundbreaking. “We must end the culture of shame and silence,” Kolawole says. “If a student cannot trust the system, they will retreat further into the cycle of use. Confidential counselling is not optional; it is essential.” The counselling sessions, he proposes, would be rooted in globally recognized therapeutic methods such as Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), strategies proven to help young people resist relapse, manage cravings, and reframe harmful thinking patterns. But the clubs would not stop at therapy alone. When students require more intensive support, counsellors would act as gateways to treatment, linking them with specialized drug rehabilitation centers, mental health clinics, or teaching hospitals. For Kolawole, this referral system ensures that schools do not simply identify problems, they actively connect students with the care they need. At the policy level, he recommends that state ministries of health assign dedicated psychologists to clusters of schools, ensuring that each club has consistent professional oversight. Such a system, he argues, would take counselling from being a sporadic luxury to an institutionalized part of the education sector.
“The Drug-Free Club is not just an extracurricular activity,” Kolawole emphasizes. “It is a frontline defense against addiction, depression, and wasted potential.” For Dr. Kolawole, the success of Drug-Free Clubs lies not in sterile lectures, but in vibrant, student-driven creativity. “Adolescents are natural innovators,” he observes. “Give them ownership, and they will take prevention beyond the classroom walls.” In practice, this means that Drug-Free Clubs would double as laboratories of expression. Students could stage dramas dramatizing the descent into addiction, host debates on the social cost of substance abuse, or produce school-wide newsletters and podcasts featuring survivor stories. Inter-school quiz competitions would test knowledge on drug use and its dangers, while essay contests would reward thoughtful reflection on the future of a drug-free Nigeria. Even more ambitious are the outreach campaigns. Kolawole envisions students stepping beyond their gates, leading community health talks, peer mentoring drives, and media advocacy projects that challenge the myths glamorizing drugs in popular culture. In this way, schools would become not just centers of prevention but incubators of youth leadership, where young Nigerians learn that advocacy is as powerful a weapon as resistance.
But vision alone is not enough. Kolawole is pragmatic: sustaining such clubs requires robust alliances with national, international, and community-based organizations. He calls on heavyweight partners like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to provide technical expertise, evidence-based materials, and global best practices. At the national level, agencies such as the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) would play pivotal roles, offering guest lectures, supplying resources on emerging drug threats, and embedding prevention within Nigeria’s broader anti-drug framework. Meanwhile, the Federal and State Ministries of Health and Education would ensure that clubs are formally recognized, integrated into school programs, and monitored for effectiveness. Perhaps most critical are local NGOs and community organizations, who bring grassroots credibility and a direct line to the realities students face outside school walls. By weaving these partnerships together, Kolawole argues, Drug-Free Clubs would avoid the fate of many well-intentioned school initiatives that fade with donor fatigue or policy neglect.
There is precedent for such collaborations. Iceland, for example, dramatically reduced adolescent drug use through a coordinated system of curfews, parental engagement, and after-school programs, all supported by government and community stakeholders. Nigeria, Kolawole insists, can craft its own version, rooted in its cultural and educational realities. “We do not need to copy and paste solutions,” he stresses. “We need to adapt them, ensuring that Nigerian youths are not only the beneficiaries but also the drivers of change.”
Grand visions rise or fall on the strength of accountability. Dr. Kolawole is keenly aware that without measurable results, Drug-Free Clubs could risk becoming just another well-meaning idea lost in Nigeria’s crowded education landscape. His solution: rigorous monitoring and evaluation systems embedded into every school program. Each club, he argues, should set clear annual objectives. Metrics might include the number of active members and their retention rates, the frequency and quality of outreach events, and most critical changes in students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward substance use. These indicators, collected through regular surveys and reports, would allow educators and policymakers to track progress, identify best practices, and replicate success across the nation. This data-driven approach, rare in Nigerian school interventions, is meant to reassure skeptics that Drug-Free Clubs are more than feel-good experiments. They are evidence-based models of prevention, tested and fine-tuned for maximum impact.
Yet Kolawole also understands the psychology of teenagers: recognition is often as powerful a motivator as information. To that end, he proposes a system of awards and competitions to celebrate excellence among clubs and their student leaders. At the school level, outstanding members could be recognized with certificates, trophies, or leadership badges. At the state and national level, annual contests from essay competitions to innovation challenges would spotlight the most creative and impactful projects. Winners might receive scholarships, mentorship opportunities, or even media coverage showcasing their achievements. By embedding a culture of recognition, Kolawole believes, schools can transform drug prevention from a burdensome message into a badge of pride, inspiring students not only to stay drug-free but to lead the fight against substance abuse with enthusiasm and creativity.
When combined, measurable goals, structured evaluation, and meaningful incentives; Drug-Free Clubs become more than extracurricular activities. They become sustainable ecosystems, capable of surviving political shifts, funding droughts, or changes in school leadership. In Kolawole’s words, they would “grow roots deep enough that they can withstand the storms of bureaucracy and neglect.” At its heart, Dr. Kolawole’s proposal is about far more than keeping teenagers away from psychoactive substances. It is about shaping the next generation of Nigerians into healthier, more resilient, and more productive citizens. The ripple effects, he argues, would be profound.
For the individual student, membership in a Drug-Free Club would not just mean awareness of substance risks. It would mean practical life skills: leadership, teamwork, public speaking, problem-solving, and resilience in the face of peer pressure. These are assets that extend beyond adolescence, preparing young Nigerians for higher education, employment, and civic engagement. For families, the benefits would be equally tangible. Fewer children caught in cycles of drug dependency means fewer households devastated by fractured relationships, financial burdens of treatment, or the heartbreak of seeing a promising child derailed. Parents who once feared what might happen outside the school gates could find reassurance in a system that actively supports their children’s choices. At the societal level, the dividends multiply. Lower rates of adolescent substance use translate into reduced healthcare costs, lessened demand on already strained mental health facilities, and a future workforce that is healthier, more reliable, and more innovative. Crime rates, often intertwined with substance use, could fall. Community cohesion could strengthen. National productivity could rise.
“It is not just about keeping drugs out of schools,” Kolawole reflects. “It is about rewriting the trajectory of our nation. A drug-free generation is a foundation for a stronger Nigeria.” His argument is not only moral but economic. Studies across the world have shown that prevention is vastly cheaper than rehabilitation. For every naira spent on school-based drug prevention, societies save multiples in healthcare, criminal justice, and lost productivity. In Nigeria, where public health budgets are already stretched thin, this cost-effectiveness could make Drug-Free Clubs one of the most strategically important investments in the nation’s future. Still, Kolawole is careful to emphasize that this cannot be the work of schools alone. Teachers, health professionals, law enforcement, parents, NGOs, and international partners all have roles to play. “Prevention is not the task of one sector,” he notes. “It is the responsibility of a society that refuses to sacrifice its youth to addiction.”
In the end, what Dr. Tolulope Olagoke Kolawole offers is not simply a proposal for secondary schools, it is a blueprint for national renewal. His study in the South African Journal of Psychiatry provided the data: 13.9 percent of students in Lagos have experimented with substances, nearly 7 percent are current users, and close to 40 percent cannot name a single long-term consequence of drug use. But data, as Kolawole knows, is powerless without action. The establishment of Drug-Free Clubs across Nigeria’s secondary schools is, in his telling, not a luxury but a necessity. The clubs would fuse youth-led enthusiasm with adult-guided expertise, combining the vibrancy of peer influence with the authority of science. They would normalize conversations once buried under stigma, offering teenagers safe spaces, confidential counselling, and a steady stream of mentorship. They would give schools the tools to measure progress and reward excellence. And above all, they would prepare a generation to face the temptations and pressures of adulthood armed with resilience and knowledge.
Kolawole’s words carry both urgency and hope: “If we are serious about a drug-free Nigeria, then the time to act is now. Every year we delay, more young lives slip through the cracks, and the price grows heavier. But if we invest today in prevention, tomorrow’s Nigeria will reap the rewards: healthier, stronger, and more united.” Viewed from the broader context of Nigeria’s development struggles, Kolawole’s advocacy is more than an academic exercise. It is a challenge to policymakers, a plea to parents, and a roadmap for communities. It calls for courage to admit that traditional awareness campaigns have failed, to shift resources from punitive enforcement to preventive care, and to treat adolescents not as passive recipients of lectures but as active agents of change.
Around the world, nations that have dared to innovate in prevention have seen dramatic results. Nigeria now stands at a similar crossroads. The choice is stark: ignore the warning signs and risk a generation scarred by addiction or seize the opportunity to build a network of Drug-Free Clubs that could stand as a model for the continent. The stakes are high. As Nigeria battles with economic uncertainty, security challenges, and demographic pressures, its youth remain its greatest asset but also its greatest vulnerability. Protecting them from the scourge of drugs is not merely a health initiative; it is an investment in national survival and prosperity.
In Dr. Kolawole’s proposal there lies a rare combination of clarity, practicality, and vision. What remains is the political will, societal buy-in, and sustained commitment to make it a reality. The question is no longer whether Nigeria can afford to establish Drug-Free Clubs in its schools. The question, as Kolawole frames it, is whether the nation can afford not to. The time to act is NOW!
(Reference: Kolawole TO, Ogunyemi AO, Lucas AR. Prevalence of substance use and knowledge of its effects among secondary school students in Lagos, Nigeria. S Afr J Psychiat. 2025;31(0), a2370. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajpsychiatry. v31i0.2370)
