A combined team of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and security agencies in Abia State has reportedly raided one of the notorious Indian hemp spots in Aba, popularly called “Black Kingdom”.
It is located behind the popular Samek Shoe Plaza, Ariaria International Market. The Nation learnt the spot had existed for years. Suspected robbers, kidnappers, cultists and other criminals met there before going for operation.
NDLEA Commander Mr. Akingbade Bamidele, parading 25 suspected drug dealers and addicts comprising 24 men and one woman before reporters at the command’s headquarters, said the arrest was made through the assistance of the police and soldiers.
Bamidele, who gave the names of some of the suspects as Leonard Alison, Iheanyichukwu Ahuruezemma, Obioma Linus, Chimezie Onyebueke and Joy Asogwa, said they recovered substances suspected to be drugs weighing about 15kg from them.
He said investigation was on, adding that the operation would reduce crime in Aba and its environs.
“Some of the suspects will be rehabilitated and the dealers will be arraigned,” Bamidele said.
On what the command was doing to stop the activities of drug dealers and addicts at the spot, he said: “I’ve written to the governor on what we should do there. We have his support, but with this new development, we will send a reminder to him on the need for NDLEA to have an outpost at “Black Kingdom”, just as it is at Milverton/York so that the agency will prepare its men and officers to take over the place.
“The government needs to look at the place and see how to take over the area. Those that own abandoned buildings these people are using, who are not ready to develop them; these criminals have taken over the place. There’s need to take over that place. The area should be fenced, to prevent criminals from encroaching on it.
“The government needs to look at that place and decide the structure it wants to build there, to prevent people who do not have legitimate business from entering there.”
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has appealed to Cross River State government to build a rehabilitation centre for illicit drug users.
Commander Mrs. Anthonia Edeh told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
in Calabar that non-availability of a rehabilitation centre made it difficult for the agency to counsel and rehabilitate drug addicts.
“It is unfortunate Cross River has no rehabilitation centre where we can rehabilitate drug addicts.
“We appeal to the government to establish one. There must be a rehabilitation centre in Cross River. It is very important,’’ she said.
Edeh said due to lack of a rehabilitation centre, the agency referred drug addicts to the Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar, after counselling.
Said she: “One problem with this is that because of the nature of psychiatric hospitals, people regard these people as mad. This scares parents, who prefer returning them home.
“Our job is not complete until a rehabilitation is carried out.’’
The commander said the government had yet to play any significant role in the fight against drug abuse, adding that it regarded drug abuse as a personal issue.
“This is very unfortunate,’’ she said.
Edeh urged the government to assist the agency in providing utility vehicles to ease operations.
She said drug abuse had reduced due to the agency’s efforts.
Addiction to cocaine, heroin, Indian hemp, ecstasy, cigarette and alcohol – sometimes in reckless combination – comes with devastating consequences that shatter lives, sunder families, cause impoverishment and at times trigger suicides. As it often turns out, as drug patrons continue to live in denial under the grinding bondage of substance dependence, their once blossoming minds and bodies also slowly wither into smithereens till addicts break ranks or die. However, for the fortunate few, who have refused to perish in the unconsciousness of their addictions, it is good news galore after walking the rugged paths of rehabilitation to achieve sobriety and become productive, reports Assistant Editor ADEKUNLE YUSUF
•Continued from Saturday, December 19
Until the harsh realities of life dawned on her, ostentatious lifestyle was a way of life for Ola, as the Delta State-born chubby woman of an average height wantedto be identified. As at 1987, when she left England for Nigeria, where she was introduced to drugs by her lovebird, Ola, who admitted that her fifteen years as an addict was akin to a fall from zenith to zero, had not plunged into a journey of unlikely return – despite being a big girl from London. Ola, who clocked 50 in March, was a night crawler, whose weekends were not complete without attending night clubs. Although, she knew her boyfriend was a cocaine and heroin user and courier, she did not bother – since “he never let me see it.” She also noticed that whenever they returned from night clubs, he would never make love to her until he went into the toilet to “fix his cigarette.” She also did not raise an eyebrow. “He usually came out from the toilet with a cigarette that he would smoke in my presence. But, his cigarette always had a different smell from the normal cigarette I was smoking, though I did not bother.”
But, things went out of control one day in 1987. After returning from a night club in the early hours of the fateful day, her man interacted with her before entering the toilet. “After making love, I found out that I was having a terrible stomach pain. When he came out of the toilet, he asked what was wrong and I told him about my stomach pains because it was becoming so unbearable that I was screaming and rolling on the bed. He now said he was sorry that he forgot. I asked what he was sorry for and why was he sorry. He gave me his cigarette and I had some puffs. Instantly I was okay.
“He told me he should not have made love to me when he was jouncing (without having taken his drugs). He was withdrawing at the time; that what he had taken was out of him. So, all the pain he was suffering from during the withdrawal time was passed onto me when he made love to me. That was why he gave me his cigarette and I was instantly fine. From that time on, anytime I had a headache, I would go for it. If I felt feverish, I went for it. Apart from cocaine and heroin, I was also soaked in alcohol, being the normal way of life in Delta State where I come from.”
‘I sold my house, cars and jewelries to get drugs’
Now firmly ensnared in the suffocating hole of hard drugs, Ola began a life of waywardness that was to compromise her future, including all her savings and personal effects. Having become addicted without knowing it, she started puffing drugs recklessly. “He was also addicted but because he was a courier who was taking it abroad, he always had it with him. Because we were staying together and he was always having it in the house, I always went for it anytime I needed it. After sometime, he left me and moved on with other girls; he knew when to stop. So, I had to start buying it. Before I knew it, I sold all my jewelries. I sold my cars. I sold my house for N200, 000 and started living on the streets.”
With all her finances down the drain, she resorted to chinese begging (accosting a stranger, greeting him in an unusually respectful manner and asking for financial assistance), which was complemented by “stealing and robbing anybody.” Although other girls in the joint added prostitution to their ways of getting money to feed their drug life, Ola said she did not venture into it. “Sometimes, you get as much as N10, 000 or more and sometimes less, depending on how your luck shines. You may even see someone who will give you N20, 000. That is why we will go out begging in the whole day so as to get enough money. Some of the girls have boyfriends who give them money; guys also go out in the night.”
But, her turning point came the day she tricked a congregation in a church and got about N75, 000; telling them a lot of lies. With the cash in her hands, she returned to the joint and smoked overnight, exhausting the money (which she said was one of the least). “So, I entered the joint and enjoyed a VIP treatment with the money made from the church. When I woke up in the morning and told the drug seller that I am hungry and he should borrow me N500 to buy food and have my bath so that I could go out again to hustle, he was very rude to me. He said, ‘Look at this Londoner woman. Who cursed you? Was I the one that ruined your life?’ Even from the way he looked at me, I had to look at myself from head to toes to see if there were excreta on my body. Everything I smoked just cleared from my eyes. I looked at the guy and he was not even up to the guardsman in my (former) house. I said that I must stop this thing because I was angry that somebody in whose joint I spent N75, 000 cannot lend me N500; instead he was raining abuses and hauling insults at me.”
Despite her resolve to stop using drugs, she was lost regarding how to go about it. That was in 2002. While still smarting from the insult, she went out to hustle, as usual. Hardly had she stepped out of the drug house when she bumped into some 419 friends, who advised her to quit drugs and join them to “chop better money.” They however gave her $300 out of their loot. On her way to the same joint, when she noticed a crowd milling around something by the roadside, near the drug joint in Ikeja. Out of curiosity, she pushed her way into the crowd, jettisoning her urge for drugs. Alas, it was the remains of one of the ladies with whom she spent the night smoking. She died at the joint. Because nobody wanted to be held responsible for her death, she was wrapped in a sack and thrown into the dust bin. “They broke her bones and wrapped her corpse in a Ghana-must-go bag and dropped her by the bus stop. And dogs and pigs were feasting on her intestines. That was in Ikeja in 2002. I became frightened and took to my heels, running as if something was pursuing me. I said I did not want to die like a chicken because the lady that died was the only child of her parents. She was from the Eastern part of the country. Her parents and family members did not even see her corpse. These were some of the thoughts that raced through my head. I did not go back to the joint till today; I left all the drugs and money. I was so scared that I was just running till I was hit by a police van pursuing some armed robbers and fell into the drainage. People brought me out later. I regained consciousness immediately, and I started running again. I am sure the people would be wondering what went wrong with me, probably thinking it was the shock of the accident that affected me. I had run from Ikeja to Maryland before I realised that I had nowhere in mind. I just stopped running before it dawned on me that it was CADAM that I wanted to go to. That’s how I came here. I was there crying and rolling on the floor that if they did not take me, I would die. I told them this is my last bus stop. I told them my parents were late, but there were sisters and brothers. I was not sure they were going to take me back, having done a lot of nasty things such as selling things in the house. I sold the house for N200, 000; not to talk of the cars and everything. I was at CADAM for more than a year until they were able to talk to my family, who doubted if I was telling the truth because of what I had done at home in the past. They were not ready to come because they felt they had their own lives to live as well. But, they came and saw for themselves. They were shocked. I was lean because of the effect of years of drugs, but they met a normal person with bulky frame. I told them I would not follow them; that I would stay in the church and help in getting others to come out of drugs. This is what I have been doing in the last thirteen years.
Drugs made me to attempt suicide thrice
From his radiance spewed with a youthful look, it is difficult to hazard a guess that Chudy Maduegbuna has enjoyed even a day’s dalliance with cigarette. Yet, the 56-year-old former addict has racked in lots of hard drugs – cocaine, heroin and cannabis – into his brittle system. As a young footballer with a rising profile in the 1970s, he was fondly called Addidas by his mates who daily thronged the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu, to watch epic encounters between the earswhil ICC (now Shooting Stars Sports’ Club), Rangers and top-flight local football clubs. Chudy acquired a nickname carelessly and fell for the allure of drugs because of the myth that narcotics would augment his soccer exploits. He started with Indian hempwhich he supplemented with cigarette, banking on the assumption that this would enhance his prospects, he had erroneously thought. Suddenly, his fate in his secondary school football team in Enugu became the first casualty, as drugs adversely affected his career, before his academic performance also nosedived. Evidence for the latter came by the time he sat for WAEC in 1977 in the form of poor result.
Because of the prevailing idea of wanting to get rich quick, Chudy went straight into business, trading in children materials: tricycles, baby walkers, plastic beds. His education stood him out among illiterates that dominated his chosen business at the time in a popular Onitsha market, Anambra State. And with a loaded importer boss, he rose fast on the business and established a thriving outfit, traveling regularly to Brazil to bring in wares. But, his hot romance with Indian hemp, which started in his secondary school days, had never waned, since nothing seemed to have suggested to him that his marriage to cannabis would be his undoing. One day, while puffing his drug of choice at a joint, he noticed that what less important boys who did not even own shops like him were smoking “looked bigger and better.”
He inquired to know, but got no satisfactory answer. Later, as fate would have it, it was the same friends that tutored him about how to invest in a more lucrative line of business: cocaine and heroin trafficking. He tried it and got a triple-fold as returns. That was how he unwittingly embarked on a journey of no return, leaving Onitsha for Lagos where he coordinated his foot soldiers in drug business. Pronto, his subsequent travels abroad were no longer for importing children stuffs, but to seal deals in importing destructive drugs into his fatherland. Brazil, India and Pakistan became his regular destinations, where he was “investing but not trafficking per se” in cocaine and heroin, earning juicy profits in the process.
However, things suddenly changed in 1983/84, when a crackdown on the thriving illicit drugs market by the no-nonsense military regime of Muhammadu Buhari/Tunde Idiagbon altered the tenor of the illegal but money-spinning business. Yet, in all his years of investment in drugs business, he only smoked Indian hemp and cigarette. “This made moving drugs in and out of Nigeria difficult. So, my money was tied down. I had to start going to Indian hemp joints to show them the drugs. I tasted it in the process and became addicted instantly. Right from the first day, it was a fall to ground zero. I lost everything except my life,” he recalled ruefully. For years, besides deliberately cutting himself off from his “family members, who were trying to pry into my secrets,” his drug habit also forced him to dispose of all household items, including personal belongings, till his apartment was emptied. And from a man brimming with bright prospects in a legitimate business, Chudy derailed into drugs trafficking because of greed, only for addiction to complete an ill-fated journey that landed him in financial ruin. Because he had started living on the streets of Lagos, he was cut off from those who could help him reconnect with reality.
Encounter with Prof Adeoye Lambo
By the time his family members realised the magnitude of his addiction after years of isolation, he was promptly taken to the late Prof Adeoye Lambo, a renowned psychiatrist, who recommended him for treatment in 1987. But, when the late psychiatrist realised that Chudy was still indulging in drugs, he asked that “I should be quarantined.” Thanks to his loving brothers who refused to ditch him in his hour of need, his addiction problems also took him to Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Abeokuta, spending months in rehabilitation that cost a fortune. After few months, he was back on his feet, clean and sober, before he secured a job with the defunct Financial Post as an office assistant, only to relapse when he fortuitously ran into some old guards who had ransacked everywhere looking for outlets to dispense a consignment of 4.5 kilograms of cocaine that just arrived from Brazil. That was how he went back to drugs in 1994, almost in the way that he was lured into cocaine and heroin by some of his former boys who had become drug merchants under his tutelage.
To the delight of his business partners, he had coordinated the drug deals in Balogun market in the dark corners of Lagos Island without any hitches, but it was the final end of the transaction that plunged them into crisis, as arguments ensued that the cocaine had been tampered with by the people that helped in warehousing the parcels in Ladipo Market, Mushin. And in an attempt to ascertain the claim, he tasted the drugs and got hooked, again. “The boys in Ladipo had taken from market (cocaine) and mixed it. The argument was that they had doctored the cocaine. They had taken away from it, mixed it and sealed it. So, we decided to cook it with soda in order to know. I tasted it and discovered that the cocaine had been tampered with,” Chudy said. The cost of that action was treatment dates in the House of Hope, Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, both in Abeokuta and Yaba, suffering multiples relapses between 1994 and 1998 before he ended up in CADAM, which he had shunned during addiction years because “it is free and meant for the downtrodden.” At this time, the realisation dawned on him after reading a letter that his younger brother, who schooled with him in Enugu, had been called to the bar in New York, United States (U.S.). And in the interregnum, Chudy, whose bungalow around Adeniran Ogunsanya area of Surulere used to be “a transit camp for almost every Onitsha boy that was in Lagos for the national youth service or business or job mission,” admitted that he decided to take his own life.
“People knew I had done well for myself. I used to live in a two-bedroom bungalow with two-bedroom boys’ quarters and a thriving business in Onitsha. To lose all that led me to begin to think about suicide three times. So, each time I went to Lagos Island to smoke, I walk through Idumota through Idumagbo. The next thing is that I would find myself on a flyover or Third Mainland Bridge. All the fishermen would be looking at me. In my mind, something would be telling me that if I jumped, I would not die but be maimed. Something would be telling me to jump and another thing would be telling me not to jump,” he reminisced, adding he is happy that “I got my life back in CADAM at the end of the day.” More than thirty years after he completed his secondary school education, Chudy, a happily married man, who is now a pastor of one of the RCCG parishes in Lekki, sat for WAEC again in 1999 and passed, which he used to enter the Bible College, University of Lagos Computer School, and NIIT where he finished his training in Microsoft certification. “It is in CADAM that I found hope that my life can be better than it was under drugs. I have no regrets about my past because everything happens in life for a purpose. I am now facing the future with confidence. Because God saved me to save others, I am using my second chance in life to lift others from the destruction of drugs.”
From Abia Poly to Lagos drug joints
The fall of Onyi Peters, 30, from his path of greatness is a pathetic story that can induce all lovers of education to shed tears. By the time he was introduced into the world of drugs, the handsome youngster, who hails from Imo State, was already a student in Abia State Polytechnic in 2000. But, because the last born from a family of five saw a lucrative opportunity in dealing in drugs for the teeming campus population, he quickly fell for the bait. That was how a young Nigerian, who secured admission into the school by the dint of hard work, started hawking cocaine, heroin, Indian hemp and other hard substances on campus, using the proceeds to sustain himself. Initially, the regular flow of cash was more than enough to savour, which later earned him the envy of rival cult groups, who courted him to join them. And to cap the sweetness of life, Onyi was merely profiting from drugs; he tasted his products.
Suddenly, all that changed when a friend, who was also a drug dealer, lectured him that he was probably shortchanging himself and clients by not having a taste of what he was selling. His friend told him that the best way to distinguish an adulterated drug from the original product is by having a taste. Although he initially shrugged off the idea, he capitulated when students started avoiding him and his products like a plague. “I saw that my friend’s market was moving very well. I know that he was selective; unlike me, he would not just buy from any dealer. Whenever he was to buy his products, he would taste it and buy the one that gave him the biggest high. His products were selling like hot cake, while mine was suffering low patronage,” he explained why he heeded the bad counsel, and got hooked on drugs in the process.
Eventually, Onyi dropped out of the polytechnic. Also, his savings and source of cash dried off afterward, as he fell deeper into drugs. Sadly, he graduated in no time, not in his studies, but in drugs consumption, upping his game from merely snuffing or smoking to injecting cocaine, heroin and other substances. From the buoyant status of unrestricted access to drugs, which his dealership afforded him, he became a drug addict, constantly buying from his trader colleagues. “Later, I was not getting any money again because I used more of the drugs than selling. I backed out of the business and started patronising those selling it. I started injecting drugs. I had to abandon my course and out of shame, I relocated to Lagos.”
As he left Abia, not just in penury, his ambition to ascend the ladder of greatness was also torn into shreds; and his future enveloped in uncertainties. However, his plan to start a new lease of life in Lagos was also not to be. Within a short stay in Lagos, he was connected again into drug business by an old drug merchant, who was in dire need of an experienced person to run around for him. Onyi became the ideal candidate. With bounteous proceeds from the first trip to India, the former undergraduate started “living large” as usual, having secured a two-bedroom apartment in Lagos. But, as it is often the case, he frittered the money on his cravings “because the thing has become resistant in my body.” He stumbled further on a fast lane, leaving a life of comfort for a “one-room apartment in a face-me-I-face-you building.” And when his life plummeted further, Onyi abandoned the woman he had just settled down with, including the newly-arrived twins, relocating to a drug hideout beside NNPC depot in Ikotun, a Lagos suburb. “My wife would come and see me at the joint. She would cry and cry, but there was nothing she could really do because she knew that addiction is not something anyone can just quit within the twinkle of an eye. While we were together, she had seen people come to me with their property to get drugs. She would just cry and pray, but the thing continued for years.”
NDLEA providing the turning-point
Even when the mother of his twins died in 2012, he was still ensnared in the unconsciousness of his addiction, unable to quit the harmful practice. However, providence smiled on him on May 4 this year, in a disguised manner though. On that fateful day, operatives from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) swooped on the notorious joint beside NNPC depot, apprehending many drug patrons to their NAHCO Office, also in Lagos. But, without anyone coming forward to bail Onyi after one week in NDLEA cell, he was set free. That was his turning-point, as he was angry about “indignities” he suffered in NDLEA detention. “I was asked if I was a seller, but they realised that I was not from the way I looked. All the people that had money among us bailed themselves immediately. I told them that I was living in a bunk; no sister, no brother or families. Officials of the agency would stay with us to see if we could invite the dealer or anybody to bail us. Sometimes, the officials would give us some drugs, which some people collected, so that we could name our dealers. At a point, after a week, they looked at us that we were like a liability to them because they were giving us food. Yet, nobody had come to ask for our bail. They just opened their gate and asked us to carry our wahala go.”
Although Onyi had made up his mind to quit, he did not know how to go about it. He, however, returned to the drug den, since there was nowhere to go. His story changed instantly, when some good Samaritans from the Centre for the Right to Health (CRH), a not-for-profit NGO empowering the vulnerable segments of the population in areas of healthy living, visited the drug joint. While his other partners mounted a fight to rebuff the visiting CRH officials, thinking that they were NDLEA informants, Onyi saw them differently. “They were even begging us to quit. That is why I embraced them. Due to my desire to quit, I had to trek all the way from the NNPC joint to CRH office at Ilupeju, lasting for more than two hours, to participate in the programme. They linked me up with detoxification centre.” Now clean and sober, Onyi, who still goes to the bunks to counsel drug addicts about the dangers inherent in drugs, is a counselor/tester with Society for Family Health (SFH) as well as a volunteer for CRH.
Addict dropped out of three varsities
Although Ibrahim Ladan Kotangora, 28, is happy to be himself now, he still rues his incursion into drugs, which has “denied me the joy of having a university degree, eleven years after I left secondary school.” His road to regret began in 1999/2000, when he was in JSS III. At that time, the son of one illustrious journalists was fond of joining his peers at KNG to chat about football and all sorts of things during the break time. Trouble began when one of his seniors in the school introduced cigarette to the group, which all the members willingly and gleefully embraced “because it was kind of freaking and interesting the way he drags it and brings out the smoke.”
From that day, all the students in the group seemed to have eaten the forbidden fruit, and there was no going back, for “we all started doing it every day without knowing it would be to our detriment.” This, however, did not inhibit Ibrahim’s journey in life until many years later. Three months after completing his secondary school education in 2004, he secured admission into Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, to study Crime Management – a rare feat in a country where millions waste years at home in search of placements into universities that have far less carrying capacity than the number of eligible applicants. It was a moment of parental accomplishment for his late father, who relished the joy of having his brilliant son taking after him. But, barely a year and a half in ABU, he dropped out due to poor academic performance caused by his addiction to marijuana, codeine, alcohol and retinol, which had taken a toll on him.
A tale of multiple relapses
That was not the end of the travails Ibrahim foisted on the family. Subsequently, as an idle hand, he was on a visit to Lagos, where friends lured him into cocaine at Liverpool, a busy drug hideout around the rail track under Marine Bridge, Apapa. Distraught that a child with a promising future was gradually turning a demon under their roof, his family took up the gauntlets, enrolling him at a private rehab facility (Damisa Hospital) in Kaduna. After three months in rehab, he was clean and sober, hoping to start life all over to achieve his dream. But, his resolve was weak and fragile, for he had barely maintained sobriety for one month when he relapsed again. Before his fourth month at the rehabilitation centre, he got a letter offering him admission into University of Abuja to study Political Science in 2006. He accepted the offer with both hands and began his studies in earnest.
Again, just after a year at the institution, Ibrahim relapsed into drugs, forcing him to abandone the programme without fulfilling the dreams his educated parents had for him. Determined to get a university degree, he made another attempt and he was successful. In 2007, Ibrahim was offered a slot into the remedial programme in Social Development at the Kaduna State Polytechnic. As usual, his exemplarily supportive parents provided the wherewithal for the umpteenth time, and he enrolled for the course. After a year, his drug cravings also compelled him to abandon the course mid-way, leaving his family heart-broken. Instead of returning to Damisa Hospital, his parents chose a rehabilitation centre in Minna, Niger State. Their efforts were also to no avail. Certainly not the type that would give up easily, in 2012, his distraught parents took their son to the new Kano Reformatory Centre (KRC), a public rehabilitation home established by the administration of former Governor Rabiu Kwakwanso. Ibrahim was to enjoy the historical privilege of being part of the first set of addicts admitted into the centre, where “I spent seven months and three weeks without any positive impact.”
Less than three months after leaving KRC, Ibrahim returned to cocaine, heroin and other hard substances, which forced him on what promised to be his final recovery journey to Nigass Rehabilitation Centre, a popular home in Kaduna, where addicts are given a new lease of life through faith-based healing approach. He spent two and a half years at the rehab before graduating on August 15 this year to the joy of his long-suffering families. “It is at Nigass that I got myself composed. Unlike the previous centers, I pray five times daily as a Muslim and recited the Quran at Nigass. I was able to get myself back physically, emotionally and spiritually. There is a lot of guidance and counseling and other things.”
Ibrahim said he wants the world to know that “drug addiction is the single biggest impediment to youth development today, especially in the northern Nigeria.” His latest dream is to venture into agriculture and “go back to school to get a degree in law.” While expressing gratitude for the “wonderful support of my entire family members who stood by me,” he reminisced, with a tinge of regret in his voice, that all the huge sums of money spent in the various rehabs could have been “channeled towards other development things, even sending me abroad for my studies.”
Leaving Navy for drugs
Bolaji Loko, now in his late 50s, is a man of illustrious birth. Being a scion of a well-to-do parents, Bolaji, only son of the two children of his parents, was rascally and naughty. His father was then the third highest ranking man at Mobil Nigeria Ltd as employees’ relations manager, and his mother was a top banker working with the Federal Building Society (now Federal Mortgage Bank). Born on Lagos Island but brought up in Surulere, he was over-pampered. He was “seriously into night clubbing.”
He was either taking Indian hemp with illicit gin and lime, or stout with Indian hemp anytime he was at the club . He grew up in life with “my father and I not on speaking terms,” despite having devout Christians as parents. His journey in life was on the fast lane when he was admitted into Yaba College of Technology (YCT). He however left YCT with OND, unable to complete the NHD “because of my rascality” before joining the Nigerian Navy in 1979. As a seaman, he became a computerised weapon operator. Deployed to Naval College as a junior instructor, doing fine until curiosity to try something new led him astray. Few years after enlisting in the Navy, his addiction problems started.
Living at drugs joints with naval uniform
Having watched some American films about addiction and its consequences, Bolaji was running away from drugs until he joined some naval colleagues to sniff cocaine. That was in 1984. When he first tasted cocaine, he said the feelings were massive because “it made me to mellow down and trip far into the horizon.” He fell for the allure. “What they have now is adulterated. Then, if you take a shot of cocaine, you won’t be able to talk because the tongue will remain numb for sometimes and you will doze off. A loud humming sound will fill the two ears so much that you won’t be able to hear anything. The feeling was what got me carried away,” he admitted.
Things went from bad to worse, as he stumbled deeper into drugs, sleeping at the drug joint under CMS bridge with “my Navy uniform, my action ring and sometimes with my liberty ring.” The same dark corners at CMS also served as his operating base. “Sometimes, I would buy drugs in bulk and give to others to sell for me while I use my uniform to give them protection. I would also be smoking. Some colleagues in the navy would come and meet me under the bridge to take drugs. If policemen came, I would collect the drugs from my boys and put it on my body, since policemen cannot arrest me.” Because the Navy frowns at hard drugs, he almost lost his job, until he threw in the towel in 2000. “I was more committed to drugs than to my naval office duties; sometimes I may not report for duty for two weeks. They would lock me up, sometimes for up to ninety days with serious hard labour. Sometimes they would charge me. They knew quite all right that I was a serious Indian hemp smoker, but they could not prove any link to other drugs.”
To feed his cravings, he was hustling for money in front of the Cathedral church at CMS bus-stop. “I would say prayers, but if I see that the denomination you are bringing out for me is small, I would turn it to another thing for you. I will threaten that my boys will gun them down if they refuse to play ball. I would scare the hell out of them because the way I would talk to them. Yet ordinary pin no dey my body. Some will even drop their entire wallet and beg not to be killed.”
In December 2004, he was caught off guard, when he a ghastly “motor accident that almost took my left leg away from me.” As he flagged down one unsuspecting motorist on the same spot at CMS, an oncoming motorist, who apparently, had fallen victim of his pranks targeted his and knocked him down as a way of avenging. A leg was totally fractured; unable to walk (he removed his trousers to show me the scars). When he was taken to the General Hospital on Lagos Island, they wanted amputate it. “I did not want to return home as a one-legged man, since I didn’t desert the house as a one-legged man.” That was how he returned home, having “exhausted all I had on the treatment of my leg.”
He had to spend the whole of 2005 in a private hospital in Isolo, owned by one of his uncles, where two major operations were carried out on his leg before he could walk again. Even during his time in the hospital, Bolaji was still on drugs, as friends were still sneaking in marijuana for him during visiting hours. “Every day, between 12am-1am, I would walk downstairs on crutches to smoke Indian hemp in the hospital. I was doing this for about three to four months. One day, one small girl just walked up to me and asked, ‘don’t you know that it is God that is dealing with you?’” He wondered how a ‘small girl’ can be that good in preaching the word of God, which suddenly reminded him that “after all I am also from a Christian home.” He said he just slept over the issue, ending up with a change of heart which saw him reconciling with his parents.
After completing his rehab at Wellsprings, Bolaji, he also went through the RCCG discipleship programme. He has worked in Lagos State University Teaching Hospital as a security man, now a guardsman in an annex of his uncle’s hospital. “Drugs let people derail, but patrons will be thinking that what they are doing is the best. We used to see ourselves as the best, the wisest and the most enlightened, not knowing that we are the worst and the most ignorant and foolish,” he lamented.
Editor’s note: All the persons and their experiences in the story are real. Full consent was sought and received before using their names and other identities.
Rehabilitated woman recalls how boyfriend lured her into consumption of heroin
THEY started out with high hopes on the parts of their parents that they would become eminent persons in the society, but they ended up in chains at various psychiatric homes, hospitals and rehabilitation centres on account of their addiction to hard drugs. Not only did they ruin their otherwise prosperous future, they also wrecked the lives of others around them and left their respective families devastated.
Some of them described their adventure into the drug world as an experience that is worse than a journey to hell. Now at the verge of being completely rehabilitated, they readily hold themselves up as lessons other young people and their parents must learn from.
Visits our correspondent paid to some psychiatric hospitals and rehabilitation homes revealed the pathetic conditions many promising males and females have found themselves on account of their addiction to drugs. Chuddy Maduegbuna has just been rehabilitated after consuming hard drugs and even trafficking in it for about 20 years. He told The Nation that he was a semi-baron during his decades of involvement in drug business.
He said: “I started taking hard drugs between the age of 12 and 13. I started with cigarette before I graduated to Indian hemp because I was involved in football and the popular belief was that smoking Indian hemp would make one to be very strong on the field.
“After failing to make a good grade in my WASC (West African Schools Certificate) examination in 1977, I couldn’t further my education because I did not meet the basic requirement to do so. Consequently, I opted for business and became an apprentice to a businessman who was involved in importation of walkers, bicycles and other baby items. Within three years of my apprenticeship, my boss gave me the seed capital to start my own business.
“My boss was always supplying all of us that served under him a good part of whatever item he imported to sell and make returns to him. I was doing this genuine business until I ran into some guys who were also into importation of goods.
“Although they were not importing as much quantity as my boss was doing, they were living better than him. While my boss would bring in as many as 10 containers, those guys would come back with say two boxes of goods, yet they were living like kings. They were buying the latest brands of cars on every year while I was struggling to buy one.
“When we met, they asked me to invest in their business and see the difference it would make to my life. I did and truly saw a huge difference. As far back as the early 1980s, if I invested N50, 000, I would make more than N200, 000 in less than a month. When I saw it, I said wow! I then became fully involved, going to Brazil to bring hard drugs into Nigeria and exporting them to Europe.
“At that time, Nigeria was mainly a transit nation, not a user one. So, we all saw it as regular business. Our boys who went to school in India and Pakistan later brought in heroin.”
Maduegbuna said the bubble later burst in 1983 when the Buhari\Idiagbon regime executed three drug traffickers, one of which he knew very well.
He said: “By that time, our goods could no longer be brought into the country and the ones we wanted to export could not be taken out because it had become known to everyonethe customs, the police and other security agents. They were all out to catch anybody in possession of the drugs.
“We decided that instead of losing the whole of our investment, we should take them to various Indian hemp joints in Lagos, giving free samples to people to use in order to encourage them to buy. It was in that process that Nigeria became a user nation and I got addicted to the drugs. It triggered the era when ‘area boys’ took to the streets to do everything they could to get money for the hard drugs. Along the line, I lost everything I had laboured to have.
“When my family saw my predicament, they started looking for a way to rescue me. One of my brothers took me to the Professor Lambo Foundation. The late professor was the first to treat me on Isaac John Street here in Lagos. When he saw that the treatment was not yielding much result, he took me to Aro Psychiatric Hospital in Abeokuta where I was quarantined.
“I was separated totally from the substances in 1987. After recovering from the challenge, I got a job with Financial Post as the personal assistant to the Commodity Editor and was doing my job honestly without having anything to do with hard drugs.
“At that point, everybody, including myself, thought I would never go back to drug trafficking or consumption. But all that ended when I ran into some of the boys I had helped to travel to Brazil. They came into the country with a large consignment of drugs and were looking for an avenue to sell them. They purposely sought me out because they believed that I would find the means of marketing the goods. It was from there that I became deeply involved again. That was in 1994.
By 1996, I was admitted in the drug ward of Yaba Psychiatric Hospital in Lagos. After my second treatment at the hospital, I went back to Aro, which by that time already had a drug treatment ward.
“Before then, what most psychiatric hospitals were doing was trial and error because they were handling cases of drug addiction as a psychiatric problem. After my treatment at Aro, I had a relapse once again and had to go to a private hospital. It was from there that I learnt about Christ Against Drug Abuse Ministry (CADAM). But they didn’t accept me immediately because my condition was critical. My family took me back to Aro.
“When an opportunity later opened for me to be rehabilitated at CADAM, I came in ready to do away with the problem that had held me captive for over two decades. I went to hell and came back within those years of drug addiction. I contemplated suicide on three different occasions but something in me always dissuaded me from doing it.
“After my rehabilitation at CADAM, I went back in 1999 to sit the GCE examination and also did other computer-based programmes.”
Combining drug addiction with other crimes
Aside from being a drug trafficker, Maduegbuna said he was also a kingpin in his neighbourhood, adding: “I never did the dirty jobs of stealing or robbing people myself. I had boys who were doing it. I was what you would call a kingpin.
“If anything like car theft or armed robbery happened in my locality, the boys always brought my share to me. If they stole anybody’s car and the person informed me about it, I would find out the people that did the job and retrieve the car as long as the owner would be prepared to pay for the service.
“I was arrested several times but was not convicted for once. If you want to do crime, you must be ready to do time (go to jail). If you are not ready to do time, you must be prepared to beat the law.
“There are five levels of drug trafficking. You have the baron, the semi-baron, the pickups, the pigeons and the courier. The courier takes the drug and delivers to the pigeons. The pigeons look for ways of converting the drugs to cash and hand the money over to the pickups and the semi barons who work with money launderers. They always devise means of getting the cash across to the baron. I was involved in all these stages but never became a baron.”
Drug for love
A rehabilitated female addict, who gave her name simply as Omolola, recalled how her boyfriend ruined her life and business by luring her into cocaine and heroin consumption.
She said: “My boyfriend who worked as a courier introduced me to cocaine and heroin. The first day I took heroin, I slept for a whole day. I had pain before I took it and by the time I woke up, the pain and headache were gone, making me to believe that they were pain killers. Because my boyfriend was a courier, we always had sufficient supplies and never for once went out to buy with our money. I consequently became an addict.
“It was after I broke up with my boyfriend that I began to use my money to buy from different joints in Ikeja, Surulere and Lagos Island. I could spend as much as N50, 000 and N100, 000 daily to take the quantity that would be sufficient for me. This made my thriving business to fold up.
“When my business folded up, I sold my cars, gold wristwatches, phones and other valuables to get the drugs. When there was nothing to sell again, I started begging for money on the streets so that I could at least get some quantities to take. At a point, I made the drug joints my home. I was always making myself available for any male addict who was ready to sleep with me as long as he would give me money or buy the drugs for me.”
She recalled that after a miserable life on the streets, “my family members eventually picked me up and took me to Yaba Psychiatrist Hospital and later to Oselu in Edo State for treatment, but I kept going back after being discharged. As an addict, I was always using the stem method in consuming the drugs. I wasted 15 good years of my life taking the drugs and had to be chained at different psychiatric homes for treatment.”
Regretting her past, OmololaI recalled how she lost about five of her close friends to drug addiction. She said: “They died of various complications like tuberculosis and HIV\AIDS as a result of sharing needles and other items with other addicts. Some were beaten to death when they went to steal in order to get money to buy the drugs. Whoever goes into drug addiction and comes out alive and a changed person is lucky. I am very happy to be one of them.
Catching them young
Sola, a 30- year-old native of Akure, Ondo State, said he took to drugs as a Primary Six pupil.
He said: “I started taking Indian hemp as a Primary Six pupil because my classmates who were living in an army barracks were always bringing them to school back then in Akure. I felt very high the first time I took it and it was as if there was another spirit in me. Whenever there was no supply and I needed to take it, I would go and help people to cut grass or carry blocks at building sites to get money to buy hemp.
“My mother died when I was 11 months old, leaving me to be raised by my grandmother who was oblivious of what I was doing. I was always going to take it late at night when she would have gone to bed. She eventually knew about it when a relation caught me and reported me to her. But being an old woman, there was little or nothing she could do to stop me.
“I graduated from smoking Indian hemp to taking skunk and other hard drugs. I later ran away from Ondo State to team up with other guys at Bar Beach here in Lagos. It was there that I learnt how to rob with toy guns and mix drugs that would make one to make love for several hours.”
Asked if he was ever arrested for stealing, he said: “I was arrested on several occasion and even charged to court on three occasions. I wasn’t convicted for once because I had people that were always coming to get me off the hook. I was eventually rescued by a company called Capital Express. They were the ones that took me to CADAM for rehabilitation.
“I have acquired skills in laundry and dry cleaning and have started rendering services to people. I don’t want to go back to that wayward life again. My regret is that my grandmother did not live to see me become a changed person. I would like to appeal to kind hearted Nigerians to also support us because the temptation to go back to drug is always high.”
Another ex-trafficker, who gave his name as Jerry, alleged that many car dealers in the country are into drug business.
He said: “A good number of the drug barons we worked for used automobile business to cover up. When the drugs are sold over there, they would use the money to buy cars they would sell in the country. At times, they would stuff some of the money in the cars they are sending. If I mention their names, you would know them because they are people that are known to the general public.”
Mothers’ ordeal
Some distraught mothers who spoke with our correspondent said it is a Herculean task taking care of drug addicts.
One of them, who pleaded anonymity, said: “It is not an easy to have a child that is into drugs. The problem has different challenges, ranging from getting to know they are into the act to running after them from one joint to the other.
“When you have such a child, there is nothing you have that is safe. My son must not see my money or my jewelry. He will always take them to sell and buy drugs with the money. My investment on his education is almost a waste because of his addiction.”
Another mother said: “This is one challenge that I would never wish my enemy goes through. If it were a mere sickness or stealing, you can devise ways of handling it. But it is a combination of many things. The worst part of it is that he keeps going back to it after he has been rehabilitated.”
‘Different ways we used hard drugs’
Analysing how he was taking the drugs, Maduegbuna, said: “Cocaine can be taken by sniffing it or by free basing. Free basing, he said, means preparing cocaine with bicarbonate solder and water.
“When you do this, you put it in a test tube and boil it. When it gets to boiling point, it would form a rock and that is what you call a chunk. The chunk is put into a stem with a substance like what is used to wash the back of a pot at the tip. When you light it, the smoke will travel through the stem and you inhale it.
“You can also use cocaine with Indian hemp. That is what we call cocktail. You can also combine it with cigarette. Heroin is a depressant. Most of the time, when you have taken a high dose of cocaine, you would need something to bring it down, and that is where heroin comes in.
“Heroin comes in two forms: the Thailand white and the brown. Heroin is also used in the various ways that cocaine is used.
“The highest step in all these is the one we call shooting or intravenous drug use (IDU). It could be very dangerous because if you shoot air into your veins, you would be a dead person. If you shoot an impure heroin into your vein, it could also be deadly. Shooting overdose into the veins is also dangerous.
“Heroin is more addictive, but cocaine is more expensive and that is why many people run away from cocaine and use more of heroin. Drug abuse is dangerous and I want to advise those who have not taken it not to venture into it at all. They should learn from people like me.
Advice to parents
Advising parents, Maduegbuna said: “Parents must be very watchful because many youths now abuse many pharmaceutical drugs. Some of these hard drugs are now packaged as capsules. Instead of raw cocaine and heroin, they use the chemicals to make drugs. These can be very dangerous and more addictive than heroin.
“Some undergraduates and graduates don’t take Indian hemp because of the offensive smell but would easily go for these types I am talking about. Some of them are like strawberries and could be served at parties. The way it is going now, people don’t have to hide to be drug addicts.
“I want to also appeal to those who are also deep into it to make up their minds to come off it. It only appears difficult but it is possible.”
Dr Sunday Amosu, a consultant neuro psychiatrist at Aro, Abeokuta in Ogun State, described drug addiction as a biopsycho-social problem that occurs at various stages.
He said: “There are the initial contact stage, the social use stage, more regular use stage and tolerance and withdrawal symptom stage.
“At the last stage, when the person does not have access to the drugs, he could be developing goose pimples, discharging mucus from the nose, watery eyes and appearing to be suffering from fever. It is the stage he can go about selling his personal effects to get what he wants. And the moment he gets what he wants, the symptoms would go.
“Drug addicts are always very clever, intelligent, smart, and can lie a lot. If you are not well trained, they can bamboozle you. Some of them could even sneak out to bring the substance and use it in the wee hour.
“Parents are always not aware of their involvement in the act, and it could be very devastating for many of them, especially those who have spent so much money on the training of their wards in higher institutions abroad. Some of the parents often have their hopes of seeing their children become responsible people in life dashed.”
He said the cost of treating them is also very high as some of them, because of their conditions, may have to go through series of treatment to reach the abstinence stage.
“Some of them, even after reaching abstinence for 10 years, can still relapse. It is a lifelong treatment to make sure they don’t go back to it.
“Some addiction could come with mental challenges, and that would require another form of treatment. Some of them would have to be screened for HIV\AIDS and hepatitis because they engage in intravenous form of drug addiction.
“Drug abuse is a robber because it affects the academic and general well being of the victims.
“The treatments range from looking at the mental situation, assessing their personality, past psychiatric problems, group therapy, individual counselling, spiritual therapy and brief intervention for those who do not have the funds to go the whole hog.
“We also try to rehabilitate them into the society, their schools and places of work because if this is not done, they could easily go back as a result of being idle.”
•Hon. Dr. Dipo Okeyomi
On the security implication of the growing menace of drug addiction, Dr. Hon. Dipo Okeyomi, a security expert, said: “The problem has festered because of corruption. Corruption is why the people saddled with the responsibility of tackling the menace are not doing their jobs very well. They know where cannabis are being planted across the country but would only act when they need to show that they are working.
“If they are up and doing, why would a trafficker succeed in moving drugs through the airport only to be caught abroad? It is when the body is rid of corruption that the menace would be addressed.”
Dr. Dokun Adedeji, National Coordinator Christ Against Drugs Abuse Ministry (CADAM), revealed how the ministry picks drug addicts for rehabilitation.
He said: “Some come to us on their own because they have heard of people that have benefited from us. Some are brought in by their family members and some others come from abroad. We also sometimes go to drug joints where they take these drugs to talk to them and some of them show the desire to come.
“Right now, we are working with eight Nigerian universities who send their students to us. A lot of cases of undergraduates’ involvement in drugs is often as a result of peer pressure. A lot of them are also as a result of family disconnect. Another thing is that many of the people we see today lack self esteem. They can’t stand on their own and are too young to be in school.
“I think the university system needs to sit down and say that if any child is not 17, he would not be admitted. There are too many young people in the university. Some of them are within the age bracket of 13 and 14 years. These kinds of children don’t have a mind of their own. They need to be guided because they had not gone out before and as a result, they see the university system as a kind of freedom and they take the freedom in the absolute sense of it, and then it leaves some of them going the wrong way.”
He regretted that the society has not seen drug abuse as a major issue, stressing that there are too many young people today engaging in drugs abuse.
“If you go to the university and take10 students and randomly test them, I can bet that seven or eight of them would test positive to drug use. That is from the experience with the people we have interacted with. The nation needs to wake up to the reality of the epidemic nature of drug addiction and illicit trafficking.”
Looking at the efforts of the government in checking the menace, he said: “To be honest with you, the government itself does not understand the gravity of the drug problem. Yes, the NDLEA has been set up to cater for it, but I think that the ground on which the agency was set up was wrong from the beginning. They basically work to fish out addicts and the barons to punish them because it is seen as a criminal activity. We need to decriminalise it. I have said it a number of times that the Drug Demand Reduction (DDR) Department of the NDLEA is weak. There is too much emphasis on interdiction.
“The international organisations that give them money and gadgets to interdict at the airport is only trying to prevent our people from bringing drugs to their countries. When that happens, the drugs stay here and our people consume it. There must be a way by which we also decriminalise addiction and begin to raise the consciousness of the people so they no longer have appetite for drugs. When the appetite drops, there demand would go down and the business would die.
“Drug trade is big business. It is one of the fastest growing industries in the world.”
He also believes that going after the barons is not the solution to the problem.
“I don’t want to be bothered about getting the barons. If we make his business unprofitable, he will close shop. So pursuing the barons is a tip of the iceberg. There are some of them in government. Some of them are in the Senate and if you affect their interest, they would kill you. They have the wherewithal to deal with you.
“My concern is to check the spread of the use. If the barons see that the trade is no more festering, they will close their shops.
“Nigeria is the sixth largest producer of cannabis in the world, but most of these drugs come from places like Thailand, Malaysia and India into Nigeria and get rerouted to Europe.
“Right now, they are producing synthetic drugs in Nigeria. Last year, they found about three places on Oregun Road in Lagos. A few months ago, they caught a guy in Anambra. Today, people will gather the whitish part of lizard dung and mix it with dry pawpaw leaves with cannabis and heroin. They are doing drug. There is a seed in the north called Zakami that is also being used for same purpose. There are so many of such and people are exploring them every day.”
Solution
Proffering solution to the menace, Amosu said: “The solution lies in going back to the community to campaign against its use. The religious bodies must be duly involved and the government also needs to rise to the occasion by providing all the necessary facilities and accessible centres for the people”
For Adedeji, the solution is that “we should raise advocacy. The government should get serious about drug issue. The society, particularly the church, should begin to wake and put issues about the family on the front burner.
“Many families are sleeping and their kids are taking drugs right in their homes and they don’t know. Some of these children deliberately abuse certain cough medicines, pretending to be treating cough. Some make use of methylated spirits and some use nail removers, polish and so on to get high. Nigeria must see this as an issue. If we don’t, it would be like HIV\AIDS that came and almost swallowed us.”
Debunking allegations of corruption against the NDLEA, the spokesperson of the agency, Jakire Ofoyeju, said: I will say it for the umpteenth time that the greatest achievement of the Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Ahmadu Giade, is his anti-corruption campaign. The presidential mandate given him on assumption of office was to tackle corruption and prevent the agency from drifting away from its core statutory functions. The agency is charged with the enforcement and due administration of the provisions of the NDLEA Act. I am glad to state that the Agency’s anti-corruption scorecard today is enviable.
•NDLEA boss Ahmadu Giade
“Accusing NDLEA under the leadership of Ahmadu Giade of corruption is an exercise in futility. He has placed strong emphasis on best practice thereby promoting institutional efficiency. His legacies of integrity and diligence will immortalise him in the annals of drug control in Nigeria. There are internal control measures to ensure integrity and good conduct among officers. The rules of engagement are known as NDLEA Order. It is important to point out the secret of the Chairman’s success story. His secret is simply strict enforcement of the rules of engagement. Under Ahmadu Giade, every officer is equal before the law and I can assure you that the compliance level of officers is impressive.”
The second achievement of Ahmadu Giade’s leadership, he added: “Is the robust collaboration between the NDLEA and international drug control agencies. We have a cordial working relationship with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (USDEA), the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the United Kingdom and Germany. Most training programmes were sponsored by the United States of America, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Switzerland and Japan. The European Union (EU) is also funding a project tagged Response to Drugs and Organised Crime in Nigeria. These platforms of interface have helped in maximising intelligence sharing, joint operations, capacity building and other high level partnership.
•4,730kg of cannabis on fire in Makurdi
“The impressive record of arrests and drug seizures validates the zero tolerance for corruption in the NDLEA. I can tell you that drug barons are not happy with the current administration. The reasons are obvious: never have there been such tremendous drug seizures with monetary value running into hundreds of billions of naira. The battle line is drawn and there is no escape route for drug trafficking. Many drug syndicates have been dismantled and others are on their way into oblivion.
“Let me also add that NDLEA statistics do not support the claim that drug trafficking is escalating in the country. Every assertion must be supported by data. The NDLEA arrested 8,826 suspected drug traffickers comprising 8,332 males and 494 females in 2014. It also seized illicit drugs weighing 166,697.18kg. A breakdown of the drugs is as follows; cannabis sativa is highest with 158,852.2kg. Psychotropic substances are 7,407.44kg, cocaine is 226.041kg and methamphetamine 119.2kg. Heroin is 56.449kg, ephedrine 35.8kg and amphetamine 0.05grammes.
“However, in 2013 suspects arrested are 8,843 comprising 8,324 males and 519 females. Total drug seized in 2013 was 339,968.11kg. The drugs include cannabis 205,373kg, psychotropic substances 134,280.38kg, cocaine 290.2kg and heroin 24.53kg. These statistics clearly indicate a reduction in arrests and seizures in the operational activities of 2014 as compared to 2013. Arrests reduced by 17 persons while drugs reduced by 173,270.93kg. The above reduction can be attributed to strategic approach to drug control adopted by the NDLEA. The NDLEA took proactive measures leading to the destruction of 53.7 million kilogrammes of cannabis in the farm in 2014.
“This represents an increase of 43.6 million kilogrammes over the 10 million kilogrammes destroyed at cannabis plantations in 2013.
In a bid to keep the momentum ever fresh, the agency will further intensify law enforcement efforts by targeting illicit drug proceeds of drug syndicates, enhance intelligence led policing and sustain professionalization of the Agency. What the Agency needs now is increased funding. We also need more logistic support and money for enlightenment campaign programmes.”
No fewer than 1,200 drug addicts have been given an opportunity to lead a productive life upon being weaned off drugs.They have been trained in skills by a Kaduna State-based organisation, the Nigas Rehabilitation Centre.
The founder of the organisation, Alhaji Lawal Muduru made the gesture known at a briefing in Sokoto.
According to Muduru who said the centre was established in 2006, the graduates were part of the nearly 1600 inmates who had been rehabilitated by the centre.
He said that the graduates who were hitherto drugs addicts were trained in carpentry, blacksmithing, ICT, tie and dye, shoemaking, saloon operations, cosmetics production and sewing and knitting, among others.
Maduru said the Centre assisted them with tools to start up their own businesses so as to facilitate their re-integration into the society.
“This is to make them self-reliant and reduce the likely stigma they may face after leaving the Centre,’’ he explained, adding,
“The Centre currently has about 240 inmates, including Muslims and Christians, and the task of taming the drugs menace is not the responsibility of the government alone. NDLEA should be adequately funded, staffed and equipped to make it more efficient [in order to] boost the anti-drugs war.”
No fewer than 1,200 drug addicts have been given an opportunity to lead a productive life upon being weaned off drugs.They have been trained in skills by a Kaduna State-based organisation, the Nigas Rehabilitation Centre.
The founder of the organisation, Alhaji Lawal Muduru made the gesture known at a briefing in Sokoto.
According to Muduru who said the centre was established in 2006, the graduates were part of the nearly 1600 inmates who had been rehabilitated by the centre.
He said that the graduates who were hitherto drugs addicts were trained in carpentry, blacksmithing, ICT, tie and dye, shoemaking, saloon operations, cosmetics production and sewing and knitting, among others.
Maduru said the Centre assisted them with tools to start up their own businesses so as to facilitate their re-integration into the society.
“This is to make them self-reliant and reduce the likely stigma they may face after leaving the Centre,’’ he explained, adding,
“The Centre currently has about 240 inmates, including Muslims and Christians, and the task of taming the drugs menace is not the responsibility of the government alone. NDLEA should be adequately funded, staffed and equipped to make it more efficient [in order to] boost the anti-drugs war.”
