• The Sun special report on how hemp smoking and other dangerous drugs are taking over university campuses from South to North, East to West
By Chika Abanobi
Notebook. Assignment book. Seminar paper. Quiz book. Whenever and wherever you hear such names being mentioned in any of our institutions of higher learning, take another look at who is talking. They could be talking of something else other what you have in mind. Those are code names for Indian hemp or cocaine.
Hemp smoking, use of other dangerous drugs have become rampant on our campuses these days that students have discovered many ingenuous ways of ingesting them. They could, for instance, make tea or cook rice, Indomie, spaghetti or prepare beans or yam porridge with it and give to unsuspecting fellow students, especially female ones who have been playing hard to get, to eat and lose consciousness for hours. As to what happens within those hours, your guess is good as ours.
In-take of dangerous weeds or drugs by whatever means fuels not only incidents of rape among students of institutions of higher learning but also cultism and other forms of violence like armed robbery, abduction, sodomy and other sexual abuses. So? Be careful about the kind of friends you keep, even female friends, while on campus. If you are a female student, be careful about the places you go for a visit, no matter how casual, as you could fall victim. If you have a child studying in any of our institutions of higher learning, better warn him or her to be careful of whom they visit or move with.
As reports of disquieting happenings on this area continued to reach The Sun Education desk, especially from higher institutions students on industrial attachment, some of whom had fallen victim, at one time or the other, we decided to ask our correspondents across Nigeria to investigate. What you will be reading this week and the weeks ahead are the results of their findings:
Findings at OAU and Osun State Poly, Iree
At the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, investigations by our correspondent showed that there is no particular location on the campus where the weeds are sold or marketed.
A 300 level student who spoke with our correspondent on the condition that his name should not be mentioned in print said that students who smoke ‘weeds’ on campus do so in secret corners where they cannot be caught by the school’s security operatives. The student who said that he combines music (not as a course in the university) with his studies also confessed to being a hemp smoker.
According to him, he cultivated the habit after one of his friends, who is also an addict, told him that it enhances academic performance. But he recalled that when he smoked it for the first time ahead of an examination, hoping that he would do better in a subject he had been finding difficult to pass, his performance was worse when the result came out.
He revealed that when he started the examination, he was feeling dizzy and confused so much so that he could not understand most of the questions. But he confessed that when he smoked it ahead one of his musical shows in town he was able to thrill his audience with a virile stage performance like he never did before. Since then he had become addicted to it.
“I personally do not see anything wrong in taking it,” he said. “It is when you take it in excess that it affects you. For me, it boosts my morale when I go for musical performances.” On how addicted students get the ‘weeds’, he said they buy them from different joints in town and smuggle them into the campus to smoke secretly.
He said the campus security operatives are always on the alert to ensure that smokers don’t smoke the hemp on campus. “That is why you can’t see anybody smoking it anyhow because they are afraid of the campus security officers,” he said. According to him, the price starts from N100 a wrap.
The university’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Mr Abiodun Olanrewaju, who spoke on the attempt being made by the authorities to stamp out the behaviour said that no student had ever been caught smoking an Indian hemp or using any dangerous drug on the campus. He noted that if any student engaged in such behaviour such culprit could be an off-campus student. He argued that whatever anti-social behaviour an off-campus student engaged in, was never the business of the university’s authorities.
The Secretary General of the Students Union Government (SUG), Oluwaseun Oketooto, who also spoke on the students union body’s attempt to discourage hemp smoking said the union does not tolerate cigarette smoking on the campus and the environs, let alone hemp smoking as anybody caught doing so would be sanctioned according to the SUG’s constitution.
At Osun State Polytechnic, Iree, investigations by our correspondent confirmed that some students engage in the smoking of Indian hemp and other dangerous drugs. One of the students who just graduated from the school confided in our correspondent that the addicts did not have any stable joint on campus where they engage in the act. “They can smoke outside the school or while walking along the road, especially at night,” he said.
On how the weeds are marketed and how the smokers get access to them, he said that the youths who grew up in the town as well as other indigenes who understand the terrain serve as intermediaries between the students and sellers of the weeds. He added that buyers put calls through for the stuff and sellers supply them in a matter of minutes at designated locations after the call.
But the institution’s Media Relations Officer, Mr. Tope Abiola, who spoke on the attempts being made by the school authorities to curb the act noted that no student dare engage in the behaviour while on the campus, describing it as a criminal act that the school authorities wields the big stick against.
“We don’t have residential students,” he said. “They live off campus. So, there is no way they can smoke Indian hemp while on campus. If any of our students engage in the act, maybe, it is in their homes, not in the school.”
He added that the school authorities always collaborated with the Students Affairs Department, faculties and departments to embark on enlightenment and orientation programmes to discourage students from the act.
Situation at UI, The Polytechnic Ibadan and Ajayi Crowther University
In Oyo State, the three tertiary institutions surveyed on the use of hard drugs and Indian hemp are: the University of Ibadan, The Polytechnic, Ibadan and Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo.
At the entrance of UI, security men use metal detector to scan the bag of those who enter the university, especially the main entrance located opposite Agbowo Shopping Complex.
But it was gathered that students of UI that use hard drugs and smoke Indian hemp don’t indulge in such act openly. Rather, they would go to the Sports Centre, near Students’ Union Building (SUB), in the evening and smoke under the cover of darkness.
Those who use hard drugs don’t stay in the hostel with other students. They usually live alone in single room apartments. A student, who preferred anonymity, said: “If you really want to see those who indulge in such habits, go to Agbowo community, which is off-campus. You won’t find them on campus. If you talk about cultism, go to Agbowo community. They are there. Many of them smoke, but I don’t know if they use hard drugs. But many UI students and The Polytechnic Ibadan students live in Agbowo, which may make it difficult to know where those who smoke come from between the two institutions.”
The Director of Public Communications, UI, Mr. Olatunji Oladejo, however, said that the use of hard drugs and smoking of Indian hemp are non-issues at the University of Ibadan. According to him, the institutions has set up relevant bodies such as Anti-Cultism Campaign Committee as well as Centre for Social Orientation, to sensitise the over 30, 000 students resident on the campus and they have been doing so.
Students caught in drug-related offences are usually suspended, he said. He cited an instance with a block of boys’ quarters, which has 30 rooms, along Barth Road on the campus. This was closed down over drug-related issues three years ago by the authorities of UI and has not been reopened since then, he said.
Investigation at The Polytechnic, Ibadan, revealed that majority of the students that indulge in such habit did not live in the campus hostels. According to a source, “I think those who do such live in Apete (a community behind the institute) and Agbowo.”
Another source said: “We have two campuses in this polytechnic; North and South. South campus is very close to the main entrance and North campus is very close to Apete and UI third gate. It is common to see some students smoking cigarettes in the evening in the vicinity of SUB. But Indian hemp and other hard drugs, I have not seen that.”
Investigation carried out at Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, showed that smoking of Indian hemp and use of hard drugs used to be serious challenges in the institution. How the students smuggled the items into the campus in spite of the thorough checking and monitoring of the students has continued to remain a mystery.
A source in the university urged the management of ACU to focus attention on the people that work there as cleaners. “The university always check and monitor the students, without checking and monitoring the activities of the cleaners that (allegedly) help the students to buy Indian hemp and hard drugs from the town,” the source said.
Investigation by The Sun Education shows that the management of the university takes the issue of possession of hard drugs and smoking of Indian hemp seriously. Students accused and found culpable of possession and use of hard drugs and Indian hemp are issued final warning while their study is converted from full time to ‘Flexible Mode of Study’.
“Ordinarily, students in this category deserve expulsion from the university,” the source noted. “However, on compassionate grounds, students in 300 and 400 levels of studentship are allowed to continue their studies on modular basis outside the campus. They would, thenceforth, be given access to the university’s teaching and learning resources for their private study. They would not be permitted to enter the campus during the normal session for other students. They would come to campus only during public holidays and they would attend classes for limited specified periods during which they would write their semester examinations.
“Conversion of their status to flexible mode goes along with the issuance of final warning which means that if found guilty of further misdemeanour against the laws of the university, they would be summarily expelled from the university. The university identifies that drug addiction problems will require a prolonged period of medical and psychological rehabilitation for the victims and so they are better to remain at home under their parents and guardians who shall avail them the necessary rehabilitation programme as well as spiritual therapy.
“For the avoidance of doubt, ACU will not harbour hemp smokers among the normal students in order to prevent them from negatively influencing and endangering the peace and well-being of other law-abiding students. They would pay the normal tuition fee, but different hostel fees whenever they come for their lectures on the campus.”
Those at 100 and 200 levels of studentship are in the early stages of their degree programmes; and so, the university cannot accommodate them under the flexible mode of study status. Rather, they are sent home for one session in order to enable their parents and guardians put them through programmes of rehabilitation as earlier stated.
Such students can resume in the university after one session but they must bring along: certificate of medical fitness from a recognised government hospital, a letter of undertaking by their parents promising that their wards would be law-abiding and of good behaviour.
Suspended students must not be found within the vicinity of the campus, otherwise they will be summarily expelled. Some students in ACU were also given final warning after they were found guilty of fighting and scaling the school fence. Sources said some bad eggs among the students usually scale the fence in order to purportedly buy Indian hemp in the town, especially at Owode in Oyo town.
When contacted, the spokesperson of Ajayi Crowther University, Mr. Wale Ademowo, refused to comment on the issue, referring the reporter to the Vice Chancellor or the Registrar of the institution. But the two principal officers could not be reached at the time of filing this report.
– With reports from Clement Adeyi, Osogbo and Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
[To be continued next week]