By Chijioke Samich
You must have read how the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), recently in Abuja, arrested a 300-level university female student and her boyfriend for selling cookies laced with drugs to secondary school students and other unsuspecting members of the public. The cookies produced with a highly psychoactive variant of cannabis, known as Arizona, in addition to alcohol and Rophynol, among other ingredients, either causes insomnia in innocent victims or knocks off consumers because of the effects of its stimulants.
Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Brig. General Mohammed Buba Marwa (retd), had described the syndicate’s action as criminal, noting that it was unconscionable on their part to deliberately lure schoolchildren into the use of drugs in the guise of selling them biscuits or cookies.
“I wish to draw the attention of parents to this new devious strategy to get children addicted to drug cookies and to urge them to remain vigilant while monitoring what their wards bring home from school or consume as snack,” he said.
The agency was to later raid some supermarkets, confectioneries and eateries selling such freshly baked cakes made with cannabis sativa in Plateau, Enugu and Niger States. There, its operatives seized large quantities of the drugged cakes called brownie. In Niger State, they were concealed in textbooks.
Come over to Shitta and help us
Well, in Lagos, the cry from residents and members of local vigilance groups, including the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), is: “Come over to Shitta and help us.” It used to be a sprawling, beautiful landmark area of Surulere, Lagos. Not so anymore! Shitta, a burgeoning melting point of drug businesses and drug-related crimes, is, today, a shadow of its former self.
Accessible through Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, Shitta, is, nowadays, almost always covered with clouds of fumes. They range from fumes from automobiles to those from the mouths and noses of young, teenage drug addicted smokers standing on the sidewalks and smokes from kitchens of different food sellers.
On the day that this reporter visited the place, Shitta Roundabout Park was busy as usual with everybody minding their businesses. There were different sets of cliques seated in the park. according to age groups and occupation. But they all had one thing in common: they were all smoking drugs and drinking different concoctions.
While the younger groups accompanied their smoking with sachets of Chelsea dry gin, the older ones had drinks like Royale Circle to wash down their smokes. Outwardly, they looked happy, relaxed, and utopian. The other category of people was the tricycle and taxi drivers. While they didn’t smoke Indian hemp or cannabis like the young boys did, many of them mixed local solutions with their herbal drinks before gulping them down their throats.
Everything one needs to know about Shitta appeared written in the body language of these smokers. The community is fast growing into one of the big centres for drugs in Lagos. The truth is, there is hardly any type of drugs you cannot get at Shitta. Just name it, from jedi (popularly known as “horse-feed”) to “ice.”
To get to the root, this reporter pretended to be a middleman trying to sample the market for a big investor somewhere. That was how he was able to win the confidence of one of the drug peddlers, popularly called ‘Bintin’ to sign him on. Very soon, you got to learn from him that the syndicate has enough hard drugs to supply him every day. “Ten kg of ‘ice’ everyday if your Oga can pay us about N1m in advance,” he said.
Harvest of hard drugs
The drugs sold here include Indian hemp, khat, ice, codeine and Tramadol. Khat is a stimulant which affects the brain and the body. It can be chewed raw or added to one’s tea to spice it up. The buds and leaves of khat plant (catha edulis), when chewed, have euphoric effects although traditionally it is also used for medicinal purposes. According to available researched records, Khat contains cathinone and cathine, chemicals said to produce stimulant effects in the brain and body.
Next on the list is ice, a strong and highly addictive drug that affects the brains the moment it is consumed. After production, the colour turns to clear crystal or shiny blue-white. Also called ‘glass,’ it’s a popular party drug. Usually, it is smoked with a small glass pipe, but it may also be swallowed, snorted, or injected into the vein. The Shitta boys mix their ice with “pseudoephedrine,” ingredients like Sudafed and Procold, sold in medicine or pharmaceutical stores. The process of making ‘ice’ is very dangerous because of the chemicals involved. Apart from the possibility of turning toxic at the end of the day, they can cause an explosion. This reporter was sick from the effects of its inhalation, for about two weeks after being taken through the production lab or plant.
Other drugs abused in the community include codeine and tramadol. They don’t take it in directly. Rather, they are mixed with locally made biscuits called cookies. These cookies are made from a concoction of many hard drugs that can get one high for five straight days. They can also be mixed with cakes on special request.
“This is the most lucrative business of them all but it takes more time and has a high risk because you might not be able to control the consumption,” Bintin noted.
Going through the drug lab
One of those who welcomed this reporter was a young man simply called Olu Kehinde. He took the reporter to different “drug labs” available in the community. It was in the course of it that he discovered that Shitta community, which used to be berthed in architectural splendour, has now become a big, squalid shanty. The community has now become clustered with makeshift shanties and structures. The drainage system has been blocked with kiosks and the verandas turned to extensions. Well-manicured lawns that once used to be the pride of the place have been turned to joints. The environment is an eyesore.
But the current situation presents drug peddlers with a good opportunity to establish their labs. During the day, the extensions are live-ins but at night they turn into labs for various hard drugs. Some abandoned buildings have also been turned into labs where different drugs are manufactured and, at times, mixed up. Kehinde, who showed the reporter round the labs, disclosed that they move the labs from place to place because of detectives who are often found patrolling the area.
“We like to secure the merchandise of our investors because they invested a huge sum of money here,” he said. “The lowest investor must have put in nothing less than N500, 000 and that is no small money to play with.”
The reporter was taken to the labs in a cloak that smells of pukes. This was after he had been given some weed to smoke. Although he claimed he does not smoke, he was asked to keep still and not make noise while the peddlers puffed some smokes into his nostrils and eyes. But when the reporter, in trying to keep up with their conversation said something in their lingo, one of them said: “And he said he does not smoke!” The comment made the reporter realise how dangerous it is to mingle with them if you don’t speak their language. After convincing them that he was a middleman trying to stake out the market for a prospective investor, trying to see how lucrative the business is, it was then that the lab visitation started. He was diligent enough to see the equipment used in the labs. It includes a transparent cylinder, a black keg, and gas cooker with a big pot seated on it.
People’s lamentations
But during the reporter’s second visit, he learnt that the increase of drug peddlers and couriers in the area are giving both the residents and local security operatives some cause to worry. Mr. Yemi Akande, who resides close to “Small London,” bemoaned the deplorable behaviour of these teenagers after ingesting some strong substances into their system. He referred to this while sharing the story of how his neighbour escaped being raped the other day by some of the drug users.
“They had a party on the other side,” he said. “Some of the boys who crossed there saw some girls discussing and laughing near an abandoned borehole. Before anybody could realise what was happening, they approached the girls and started rough-handling and fondling their bodies and wanting to rape them. When they were eventually caught, people didn’t want to beat them because they felt they were acting under the influence of drugs.”
Another resident, an Igbo woman, was full of regrets and bitterness when she spoke to this reporter in Igbo language of how her daughter, Njideka was raped by one of the boys when her husband sent her on an errand somewhere within the area.
“Njideka was not a perfect child,” she admitted, “but she sure was raped by the fellow she claimed did it. The boy apologised that he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Well, by the time we found out, the deed had been done. For now, we can only play our role to stop it from escalating.”
Contacted, the Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC) members who used to be in charge of security in the area and who used to curb the activities of these boys, pleaded helplessness in the face of lack of government support.
Kazeem Elekumefa, Commander, OPC, Shitta Zone said that since the neglect started, security in the area had gone from bad to worse, leading to the increase in crime cases especially the unrestrained use of hard drugs.
“There is need to mobilise the local security to curb the activities of these boys,” he said. “Actually, we were the ones who were manning here and helping to keep crimes and criminal activities low, but since the government withdrew its support from us, things have gone bad, really bad, as nobody appears to be in charge of the security of this area anymore.”
Rotimi Owolabi, Secretary of the Community Development Association (CDA) of the zone and also a resident of the community, agreed with Elekumefa’s observation on the deterioration of security in the area and called for urgent attention to be given to it by government security agencies before things get out of hands.
“These boys no longer have fear,” he said. “Only God knows what they take that gives them the courage to attack people on this road and in this zone. There is hardly any day that passes that you don’t hear of one of them trying to play a fast one on a passer-by. And, whenever they are caught, they easily claim that they are under the influence of one substance or the other.”
A source close to the police said that the police are trying their best but are being hampered in their efforts by lack of tangible information.
“These people are operating as a cult,” the source stated. He did not want his name mentioned, claiming that he was not authorised to speak to the press.