With the rate at which teenagers in Lagos are smoking Indian Hemp as if it is a candy, and going out of fashion, stakeholders are at a crossroad on how best to handle the helpless situation reports Sina Fadare & Medinat Kanabe
They are helpless, homeless, hopeless and perhaps do not know the implications of their actions. They are smoking marijuana, popularly called Indian hemp, igbo, eja or kukuye on a 24-hours basis as if their lives depend on it. They are products of broken homes and carefree parents who care less about where, when and how they are surviving. They live their lives on the streets and under the bridges. During the day, they are noticeable at major bus stops and parks across Lagos and other states. And these are aside those permanently operating under the bridge at Oshodi towards the Ilupeju end. Often, you can identify them by their tell-tale unkempt looks, wrapped weed in between their fingers, thick smokes unfurling and melting into the atmosphere, and of course the nauseating odour. Welcome to the little world of teenage hemp smokers,
As early as 5 am, their day starts. They are on the streets, snatching bags, phones and money. Investigation by The Nation revealed that they rarely sleep, preferring to occupy themselves with smoking Indian hemp almost throughout the night. And they’re freshly out of the cradle, their ages ranging between 12 -16 years.
“How can they sleep, when throughout the day they are smoking Indian hemp? Definitely sleep will elude them and that is why they are ready-made recruits for buglers and armed robbers,” a newspaper vendor under the bridge, who knew virtually all of them, due to years of interacting with them lamented.
We also discovered that some of them have turned under the bridge to their homes. Their clothes could be seen littering the base of the bridge, while those recently washed hung on the barbed wire, supposedly used as demarcation by the authorities to discourage people from making the place a bypass.
A repeat visit to the place on weekends confirmed that the kids actually live under the bridge. Some of them could be seen washing few of pieces of cloths, while others naturally busied themselves with their pastimes, hemp smoking. It did not matter that it was just 6:30 in the morning. We also discovered that they are threats to commuters who trooped to the popular bus terminus to take early bus rides to Lagos Island and other cities and towns outside the state. At one time or the other, a good number of them have fallen prey to these urchins, losing bags, phones and other belongings in the process.
After the morning rush of passengers, some of them move to the garage adjacent their abode to begin a long session of dice and card games, using money, wrist watches and sometimes shoes, most of which were stolen, to bet. During this time, the big white stick never leaves their fingers. They just can’t seem to have enough of the illicit weed.
How teenagers between the ages of 11 to 15 years of age could become hemp addicts in the glare of the ever busy Oshodi, with so many people troop in droves on a per minute basis beats the imagination and raises cause for concern. More worrisome is the fact that a police station sits just about 10 meters from this spot.
This team of The Nation was however dazed to discover that this trend cuts across the major bus parks and bus stops across the Lagos metropolis. From Fadeyi to Mushin to Bariga; right across to Somolu, Ketu, Pen Cinema, Abbatoir, Mile 12, Olodana Oto Apapa, Agege, Ajelogo, Agric Ikorodu, Agbole area of Ikotun, Itire, Ojuelegba, Obalende; the story is the same. And so it is official, hordes of teenagers, who should be in school or at vocational training, preparing themselves for a meaningful future, are smoking away their future with impunity.
At Agege area of the state, a middle age man, who identified himself as Baba Kabiru, said he almost fainted the day he learnt that his son who was in primary six was smoking Indian hemp.
He said the poor boy learnt to smoke the weed during his regular trips to the Quranic lesson, which he used to attend after school hours. “Some of the bad boys were living in the same building that is housing the evening class and were using these innocent children as errand boys whenever their master was not around. Gradually my son and some others were inducted into smoking. I got to know one day when my wallet was missing. In the confusion of searching everywhere, l checked his school bag where l saw two raps of Indian hemp.”
Baba Kabiru who disclosed that he was unable to sleep that night said upon investigation he learnt that they have a group and they have been involved for a while. “l had to change his school and move away from the environment because l was too shocked to see my son, a primary school pupil smoking Indian hemp. The experience is still strange to me.” He lamented.
The entrance of Our Lady Lourdes Girls Primary School on Clegg Street in Surulere area of Lagos is another notorious joint that harbours hemp-smoking kids. On a daily bases, immediately the school closes for the day, these kids take charge and smoke marijuana till the wee hours of the day.
Again, the Area ‘C’ Police Division is very close to the school compound, but somehow, they seem to be content with looking elsewhere, whilst this atrocity go on.
Speaking to The Nation on condition of anonymity, a police officer from the command said most of the parents of these kids are within the vicinity, but unfortunately they cannot put them under control, adding that “there is little the police can do because some of these kids are under-age and cannot be put behind bars.”
As a panacea, he challenged the government to wake up to its responsibility and send these kids to rehabilitation homes, where they can learn different vocations to make useful to themselves and society later in life.
At Obalende, another kid hemp smoking rendezvous assailed our reporter. Here we gathered that weed smoking, particularly among the teenagers, is like a carnival. A middle-aged woman, Labake Ilori who sells assorted wines in the area questioned this reporter’s naivety, asking if he was new in Lagos not to know that smoking of Indian hemp in the vicinity by the teenagers is a daily occurrence.
“Are you new in Lagos? All these kids are chain hemp smokers, virtually from morning till late into the night. Some of them don’t have anywhere to go; therefore they live on the streets and sleep in most of the kiosks. Occasionally the police come here to raid them, but after few days you see them again,” she explained.
She lamented that at the dawn or night, they become uncontrollable and there is nothing they cannot steal. “You can see all of us are very careful and keep our money inside our inner purse otherwise they can do anything.”
Candidates for nuthouse
If the kid hemp smokers are potential recruits into the world of crime, they are also potential patients at psychiatric homes. The question thus arises; why are they left to waste away their future under the bridges and at bus terminals, when their parents, government officials and even the police could have kept them in check?
Lagos State Police Public Relation Officer, Mr. Nwosu Kenneth said that the police in the State are doing everything within its power to arrest the situation.
He pointed out that Oshodi area of the state is a peculiar terrain that remains a concern to the police authority, adding that “when we arrest people we know are underage and cannot really be arrested under the criminal justice system, we take them to juvenile homes for care because some of them get involved in it because of lack of care.”
He said the police in partnership with the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW and the government of Lagos State are trying to mop up the area in order to save the future of the kids. “Most of the kids you see there are not from a home; they are on their own, fending for themselves; so they are vulnerable and easily lured into these things. We do clean up there about twice a week. We rescue these kids because they cannot be arrested. If you have information about how we can get the kids, so they can be rescued, it will be much appreciated.”
Kenneth however regrets that the kids keep returning to the dark areas, despite being rescued on a daily basis. He ascribed this to the fact that these are places where they earn their living, albeit illegitimately.
Speaking in the same vein, Head of Public Affairs of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Mr. Ofoyeju Mitchell said kids get involved in marijuana due to their ignorance of the consequences of the drug.
Mitchell while speaking to The Nation in his office noted that “some are so carried away by the type of peer groups they keep that they don’t even know when get involved. If they are unfortunate to have friends who are involved, they are likely to succumb to pressure by their peers to try it out.”
According to Mitchell most of the kids do not have what you can call a home; therefore they are ready-made tools for such a gamble. “Lack of good upbringing also leads to it because when children are not properly cared for, it affects. You don’t know their friends or what they do; when they keep late nights, nobody asks where they are coming from. And children being what they are, like to experiment, even when they know that government have said the drug abuse is bad. They want to experiment and have a taste of that much-talked-about euphoric pleasurable feeling, forgetting that the feeling is addictive.”
He lamented that these kids are products of broken homes, who possibly have nobody to lean on for survival and therefore take solace in bad peer groups. “There are children that don’t even know where they are from or where their parents are. We have counseled some that we expect them to go back home, but they can’t because of one reason or the other. Some live under the bridge in Lagos but their parents are in Osogbo. And when they are on the streets, they are exposed to all forms of abuses because they don’t have guidance.”
Mitchell pointed out that the NDLEA has put up a lot of enlightenment programmes to assist them. “We have introduced drug free clubs in schools. The club builds capacity among the children. They have their NGO. We talk to them and give them fliers, and whenever they are having programmes like debate or seminar within their school, they invite us as patrons to come and present talks and we believe that by involving them in anti-drug abuse programme, it will help to inculcate a drug free lifestyle in them, and it is working.”
Mitchell said that in as much as the agency wants these kids off the street, it has its limitations. “We have challenges of accommodation for them. After we counsel them, we can give them money to go back to their various homes around the country, but there is no proper follow-up or monitoring to know if they actually went home.
“There are some others that after the counseling process, they go back home but because of lack of follow-up we re-admit them again. We expect that their parents would take over after they complete the process. Some say that nobody cared for them after getting home, but their friends came and they followed them and started taking the substance again.”
He argued that the daunting challenge at hand is that all hands must be on deck to monitor these kids, particularly by their parents who have greater responsibility towards them before they turn to social menace.
“We have raided Oshodi, Obalende and some other notorious spots in Lagos and we do that on regular bases, but we cannot do it alone. Parents must be involved; NGOs, civil society groups, opinion leaders, traditional rulers, individuals. We have a dedicated phone line on our website that people use but we also advise other people to use it. I cannot know what is happening in your area even though we have people who go out to raid notorious places.” He said.
Reacting to the allegation that the government of Lagos State is not doing enough to take these kids off the streets, a deputy director at the ministry of Environment, Lagos State, who spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity said the government is trying to do its best but challenged parents not to give birth to children they cannot take care of, lest they become social deviants.
According to him the government in conjunction with relevant security agencies raids these notorious dark spots, but the kids are always back there after “escaping from our custody at juvenile homes.”
He lamented that the government is busy about electioneering at the moment and most of these kids have been conscripted into pasting posters, especially at night; therefore he said “To have a meaningful programme for them will be after this election palaver.”
