It is in the pockets, usually hidden from the eyes, but a lubricant to experiment self-destruction and deception. In Nigeria, illicit drugs have become a national anthem and creed. It’s freely available on the streets, it has assumed a sachet economy, deregulated and available.
Drugs of all kinds, and don’t ask me to name them, are sold off the shelf and no prescription needed. Official records say about 40 per cent of Nigerian young persons are withinorganised rings as users and traders of illicit drugs, a scary trend that nation seems ambivalent about its destructive end.
Is this our culture, has the government failed and where are our parents and role models?
Fingers easily point at dysfunctional governance, poor parenting and influence of foreign culture as the source of the low estate of Nigerian young people in the drug chain. It certainly generates nightmares.
Last week in Asaba, Delta State, the National Institute for Cultural Orientation ( NICO), a government agency primarily set up to interrogate societal expectations and development through the prism of Nigeria’s undiluted cultural and historical background, brought to the fore the quest to arrest the dangerous bent of our youths towards illicit drugs consumption.
Ado Yahuza, the executive director and chief executive of NICO, stated that government was worried about the negative consequences of the use of hard drugs on Nigerian young persons and called for a rethink and return to the old cultural pathway.
And what are the cultural interventions? It’s a taboo in the old days to either publicly or in private engage in acts inimical and harmful to self or others, generally seen as a good neighbour creed and observed to the good of all.
NICO, in the past one year, has aggressively redirected energy and deployed manpower and resources to re-establish the cultural and traditional value chain through our over 350 indigenous tongues and ways of life, to capture the “lost young persons” who are at the crossroads leading to a bleak future and a world pregnant with socioeconomic troubles.
Yahuza, in the attempt to draw attention to the rampaging evils of drug consumption and abuse by the youths, carefully selected and invited a faculty of experts from the academia, with serving youth corps members from the Delta State command as targets, to interrogate the process and underpin the behavioural dislocation and proffer solutions.
Interestingly, the NICO roundtable engagement, with theme “Culture, drug abuse and the future of Nigerian youth,” aptly situated the physical and emotional framework of the issue, a gain to practically find a solution-driven process, which made the faculty to discard submissions baked in library works.
Professor Christian Ewhrudjakkor of Delta State University, Abraka, factored an insightful recovery plan for the troubling situation in a paper titled “Culture consciousness, Nigerian youths and contemporary challenges.”
His submissions, a clarion call to a determined effort in “dredging” the Nigerian cultural waterways to make it useful and navigable in the quest to arrest and protect the future of the youths, set the pace for the way to go.
As usual, I must summarise the process of all the prayers advanced as laboratory findings to the consequences of use and consumption of illicit drugs by the youths and to which serious efforts must be deployed in addressing the problems and reducing the number of inmates in the rehabilitation camps.
In no particular order, Professor (Mrs.) Okorodudu of Delta State University, presented a novel system approach to the issue in a paper, “Rethinking strategies for combating drug abuse among youths,” while doctors Ortega O’Kinono of the University of Delta and Bridget Onochie, of the Guardian newspapers, respectively, dwelt on “Declining social values; Drug abuse prevalence: Exploring alternative cultural control mechanism” and “The role of the media in the fight against drug abuse among youths.”
Dr. Wale Ige’s paper, “Towards saving Nigerian youths from the menace of drug abuse: Intervention by NDLEA,” provoked a pin-drop silence, as an evidential practical field work video extract of youngsters caught in illicit drugs consumption festival left the audience in awesome dislocation. It was close call, impactful, and everyone present swore to avoid being a victim.
“Eradication of drug abuse and other related substances: A panacea for sustainable development in Nigeria,” by Prof. Robert Oghenedoro Dode of Dennis Osadebay University, also gave insight to the practical solution-driven agenda for the malaise. Interventions from Ms. Josephine Awele Odunze, senior special assistant to Delta State governor on culture and tourism, reverberated throughout the 2,000-seater Orchid Hotel hall, venue of the two-day event in Asaba.
Indeed, the clarion call to restore, restart and reprogramme the lost system of Nigerian cultural and traditional values, in arresting the drugs consumption trend among youths, remains the most important solution pathway. How NICO will get funds to drive this process is a challenge to the National Assembly and the Federal Government. And if the youths are indeed the future of Nigeria, no amount of money and cultural manpower must be spared in efforts to re-examine and empower cultural solutions to bridge rehabilitation efforts in giving the youths fresh hope about Nigeria.