Features

Africa In Political Turmoil

Published

7 months ago

October 11, 2023

In the morning of July 26, 2023 the world was shocked by soldiers who in Niger Republic, under the guise of the National Council for the Safety of the Homeland (CNSP), and loyal to General Abdiurahamane Tiani, detained the country’s President, Mohamad. Bazoum, citing security and governance concerns. Earlier in April, Mr Bazoum had dismissed Chief of Army Staff, General Salifou Mody and had also announced the plan to sack General Tiani.This was while the regional bloc, the Economic Commission for West African States (ECOWAS), was still grappling with the coup situation in Mali earlier in 2022. Following the coup in Mali and the detaining of 46 Ivorien soldiers in the country, West African leaders had met in Abuja to brainstorm on ways of restoring security and constitutional order in the region, by setting up a regional peace-keeping force to intervene in the event of instability in any member state.. Arising from the meeting with a communique, the bloc declared as follows, “The leaders of ECOWAS have decided to recalibrate our security architecture to ensure that we take care of our security in the region.” It went further to affirm that, “The leaders are determined to establish a regional force that will intervene in the event of needs, whether this is in the area of security, terrorism (or, to) … restore constitutional order in member countries.”
Though ECOWAS did not give details of the constitution of the regional force, it said defence chiefs of member states were to meet the following month to work out the modalities. However, ECOWAS financers, Nigeria and Ghana were (and still are) bogged-down with internal economic crises, while the former was in the eve of major elections as at the time of the declarations. So it happened that while ECOWAS was still in the doldrumds as a new government was about to settle down from major elections in one of its key partners, the Nigerien junta struck to complete an unbroken belt, now referred to as “The Coup Belt” of the world. This area, with conspicuous foothold in West Africa, spans from the West African Atlantic coast, across the Sahel, to the Eastern African end that terminates at the Red Sea, representing a now notorious strip, where just within the last three years, military juntas have struck and successfully taken over some salarming and a bad dent for the west African region, and worrisome particularly for the regional bloc, ECOWAS. The bloc, and in deed the democratic world, now contemplate the future of democracy and civilian order in Africa. As early as 2017, all 15 member states of the ECOWAS were led by constitutional civilian governments. At the last count, six have been replaced by military juntas. Whereas the ECOWAS bloc pledges, among other benefits, to intervene in member states in the event of internal, destabilising crises to help restore and maintain constitutional order, the presence of these new crop of military leaders in its fold will make that complex task more unrealistic.
Already, the military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are at loggerheads with key ECOWAS international partners with the cancellations in those countres, of military agreements that allowed French troops to operate in their territories. Mali went further to remove French as its official language and called-off ties with the French financial system. While France was strategising to move troops displaced from Mali and Burkina Faso to Niger Republic as its new operational base, the coup in Niger and cancellation of ties with France have complicated the efforts. On a wider scene, apart from the Malian coup of 2012, the recent coups in Africa can be said to have kick-started in Sudan on April 11, 2019, with the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir by the Sudanese Armed Forces. The army under the command of Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf overthrew the government and National Legislature and proclaimed a three-month state of emergency in the north-east African nation, following mass demonstrations calling for President Omar al-Bashir’s ouster. On August 18, 2020, a splinter of the Malian Armed Forces, led by Assimi Gota, initiated a mutiny, followed by a coup d’état in which several government officials were detained with the president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keta. The president was forced to resign and dissolve the government. A new government came on-board with the coup mastermind and leader, Assimi Gota, playing the role of the Vice President. However, nine months later, in the evening of May 24, 2021, the Malian Army, under the command of Vice President Assimi Gota, seized his new boss, President Bah N’daw, the Prime Minister, Moctar Ouane, and Minister of Defence, Souleymane Doucouré, announcing the nation’s third coup d’état in 10 years since 2012, while transitting himself to the topmost position.
The Hichem Mechichi government of Tunisia was overthrown on July 25, 2021 by Kais Saied, who also suspended the Assembly of Representatives of the People and removed the immunity of its members. The coup followed political unrests, caused by anti-Ennahda protests and the breakdown of Tunisia’s healthcare system following the COVID-19 pandemic that spread in early 2020.On September 5, 2021, Alpha Condé, the president of Guinea, was taken prisoner by the military. The leader of the special forces dissolved the government and the constitution in a broadcast on state television by Mamady Doumbouya. This was closely followed on October 25, 2021 by another Sudanese coup in which General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Sudanese military, while detaining some top government officials, forcefully took over the country’s government. The ugly scene returned to West Africa on January 23, 2022 in Burkina Faso, where rumours of a coup d’état spread fast. By the following day, January 24, 2022, the military confirmed the removal from office, of the country’s constitutional head, President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré in a television announcement. That same year, in same Burkina Faso, precisely on September 30, 2022, just within eight months in office, another coup d’état removed Interim President Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba from power, due to his apparent failure to handle the nation’s Islamist insurgency. Captain Ibrahim Traoré took over reigns in acting capacity. Islamist insurgency remains unsolved in the country.
In the last tally in West Africa, on July 26, 2023, in the counts of the number of coups that have painted the ECOWAS bloc in a new notoriety, forner President Mohamed Bazoum and his family have been left in captivity and begging the regional bloc to at least secure their safety. After the initial grand-standing between the new leaders in Niger, backed by fellow West-African comrades-in-arm on one hand; and the ECOWAS bloc led by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu of Nigeria, backed especially by Niger’s colonial masters, France, the European Union and other Western powers, on the other hand, it is obvious that forceful intervention in Niger would be costly, in the face of more complex underlying factors. Mr Bazoum, who has been under intense pressure to formerly resign, is faced with the hard choice of considering his family’s safety and the increasingly elluding presidency and may likely handover to his former presidential guard commander, General Abdourahamane Tchiani, already in control of the new military junta as well as affairs in the county, even though France insists the government is illegal. These successful coups go without mentioning the unsuccessful attempts in Guinea Bisau in 2022, The Gambia in 2022 and Sierra Leone this year, with so many other unannounced rumblings. As if the rumbling storms, ominously hovering across the African continent, is seeking a new belt within the Francophone fronts, another coup, the 10th in Africa since 2017, was announced yet again on August 30, 2023 from relatively stable Gabon in Central Africa.
This time, another junta, disgruntled by results announcement by the election body, of general elections that held five days earlier, in which the ousted president, Mr Ali Bongo Ondimba, was declared winner as a sitting president seeking a third term in office, to extend his family’s 56-year hold to power in the Francophone, oil rich country of 2.3 million people.It has become noteworthy that over 78percent of coups in Africa since 1990 have occurred in Francophone countries making many to contemplate the nature of France’s influence in the governance politics, as well as in the economy and security of its former colonies, as a stabilising partner, being former colonial masters. Apart from the nature of agreements entered into with France by post-colonial, Francophone governments with respect to the exclusive economic, financial and political relations with France prior to the granting of independence, a situation most now resent, African leaders have repeatedly demonstrated excesses in power, leading to widespread discontents. Most nationals, especially in the former French colonies, see France as continuing to back governments in Africa despite their oppressive excesses. In Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and now, Gabon, there were obvious inducements to the frustrations that led to political change, however unjustified the coups may have been in the first place.
Mali’s former president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, had neglected the northern and central regions of his country, elections manipulated and repressed the consequential protests with brutal force. Guniea’s forner president, Alpha Conde, had reportedly rigged a constitutional referendum for his third term, while in Gabon, the greed for another third term, which would have assured a 56-year dinasty for the Ali Bongo family, was the anger. Burkina Faso’s Roch Marc Christian Kabore was accused, like every other leader within the Sahel, of poor handling of jihadist attacks which terrorise the entire region with heavy casualties on the armies of countries combating them. All juntas, point in the same direction of insecurity as part of reasons for seizing power, though they are yet to solve the problem. Accusing fingers have been directed particularly towards France, who has assisted the region to co-ordinate the international fight against Islamist insurgents through the Operation Barkhane. The rapid appearances of the Russian flags in capitals of African countries as coups take place, may be evidence of some other underpinnings. It not surpring that these new juntas while trying to edge-out France and its allies as their country’s former long-time partners, seek new alliances from either Russia or Turkey, in a fashion that paints some complex take over. It remains to be understood which way China, which has strong foot prints in Africa, stands in all these.
Take for instance, that Russian seemingly private mercenary security outfit, The Wagner Group, operates with deepening tentacles in these countries, in not clearly detailed missions. Given Wagna’s interests in natural resources and Russia’s resource wars in Europe, one begins to ask if there is more to the recent storm hovering in Africa. Is there a neo-scramble for Africa riding on Francophone resentments to pose as uprisings? Which country would be the next? The accelerating trend of coups in Africa is evolving clearer into a more fundamental challenge to Africa’s ties with the West and its systems of civilian-led, constitutional, pluralist governments, helped by development and military partnerships. One may ask, has democracy failed us, or is it in the nature of Africans to mismanage their affairs? Resource-rich African countries and leaders who constitute themselves into visionless stooges, should have some deeper reflections. However, for the mutiniers, It the pawns on the Chess board who don not understand the games to which they are applied. France should reconsider its African policies to free-up bondings that have become strangulating, without which, playing into the hands of its adversaries, it may as well continue to expect L’Afrique En Marche! on the African continent.

By: Joseph Nwankwo

Features

Malaria Burden And Public Health In Nigeria

Published

2 days ago

May 15, 2024

The Tide

It is worrisome that Nigeria has the largest Malaria deaths in the world. According to the 2022 World.Malaria Report, Nigeria contributes about 27 percent of the global burden of Malaria disease, and about 31.3 percent of deaths , the highest in the world.
Malaria accounts for 30 percent of childhood deaths,.60 percent of outpatient visits to health facilities across Nigeria.
According to statistics reeled out by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, “Globally, there are an estimated 249million malaria cases and 608,000 malaria deaths among 85 countries.
Such reports leave much to be desired in a nation so blessed with natural resources and manpower. While Nigeria is struggling with Malaria burden, Cape de Verde, today live Malaria-free, according to the
World Health Organization (WHO) certification and rating.
This declaration by the global health Organisation about Cape Verde is very cheery and means so much to me considering the economy, size and polity of the country.
Unlike Nigeria with more than 44 mineral resources spread across 500 locations in the country, Cape de Verde, has no natural resources. Its developing resources is mostly Service-oriented with growing focus on tourism and foreign investment.
My worry is that even with abounding natural and human resources of unimaginable quantity in Nigeria, Malaria programmes are either grossly underfunded, misappropriated or embezzled with impunity.
According to a Senior Associate at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public.Health, Soji Adeyi, Nigeria should begin to increase internal funding.for malaria elimination.
Nigerian citizens still wallow in the orgy of leadership-induced pain, poverty and sorrow more than 63 years after political independence.
Malaria that is alien to the natural resources-barren Cape de Verde is endemic in Nigeria and is one of the leading causes of death of children under the age of six and pregnant women. Malaria is an household name in Nigeria so much so that its drugs and treatment have skyrocketed like a phoenix and outrageously outside the reach of the teeming less privileged citizens of Nigeria. The situation was so alarming that the National Assembly, some time last year urged the Federal Government to declare Malaria an emergency in Nigeria as matter of urgent national interest. Because it is an ailment that only the poor and vulnerable suffer, that motion is treated with levity and perhaps consigned to the trashcan of not-feasible declarations.
Without any iota of doubt, Nigeria has the resources to fight and conquer malaria. If Cape de Verde could, Nigeria can as well if the leadership of the country is committed to do so.
At.an event organised by.the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare recently, themed “Ministerial Roundtable Meeting: Rethinking Malaria Elimination in Nigeria “representatives of national and international health organisations, analysed the country’s anti-malaria strategies over the past years.
Experts recommended new approaches to fighting the malaria epidemic in Nigeria which seems to have defied continuous attempts to reduce the Malaria burden in Nigeria to zero.
Adeyi of the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health advocates increased internal funding.of all Malaria programmes to eliminate Malaria. According to him,, “Each year reliance on external funding needs to be reduced. I looked at the summary of Malaria reports from 2008 till now and what has been common is the complaint about the lack of funding. If this is a recurring problem, what should be done is to find a new approach.”
In his view, Abdu Muktar, National Coordinator of the Presidential Healthcare Initiative, called for the local production and manufacturing of medical supplies as well as reducing Nigeria’s dependence on drugs imports.
According to him, the local production of anti-malaria and.related.medication will consider.the peculiarity of the country’s terrain, population and burden and.would improve access to effective treatment.
For his part, the regional. Director of World Health Organisation (W.H.O.), African Region, Matshiddiso Moretti, advised Nigeria to accelerate its efforts to end Malaria by relying on adequate data for the implementation of health policies.
It has been rightly said that Nigeria is rich but its people are abjectly poor because of the abysmally poor leadership that has characterised governance in the country since the inception of self-rule.
If the millions of public funds stashed in private and foreign accounts, misappropriated and or embezzled are judiciously used, no doubt, the issues of malaria, unemployment, decaying and dilapidated infrastructure and marginal underdevelopment with the attendant multi-dimensional socio-economic challenges, would have since been addressed.
How will Nigeria ascribe to herself “Giant of Africa” when she has not been able to achieve the healthcare demands and requirements of Nigerians? How can Nigerian leaders audaciously lull its citizens to believe that they are working for the welfare of Nigerians when the seeming little things that matter are not attended to. Even welfare-oriented programmes are being truncated by greed and inordinate desire to amass wealth at the expense of the public.
The anomaly of diversions, misappropriation, outright embezzlement, and several others are the reasons Nigeria’s present and successive governments could not win the fight against malaria which health and medical practitioners say poses the greatest threat to life than the dreaded HIV/AIDS. This suggests to me that the mortality rate caused by HIV/AIDS is grossly disproportionate to deaths caused by malaria.
Malaria is commonly believed to be caused by mosquitoes which breed in dirty environment, especially where there is stagnant water. A lot of communities in Nigeria even the Sandfilled area of Borikiri in Port Harcourt is so mosquito-infested that residents cannot sleep without nets. It is a nightmare to sleep without a net.
The Federal, State, and Local Government should initiate programmes to end malaria scourge in the country. They should intentionally and proactively channel the people’s money to their welfare. Malaria eradication is a public welfare-oriented programme so government at all levels must prosecute it with adequate funding that must be supervised and accounted for, to avoid the unfortunate incidents of the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry and several other Ministries, Departments and Agencies that have used programmes and projects as smokescreen to siphon public funds.
While there should be a dedicated funds to fight malaria and defeat it over a period of time, environmental sanitation exercises, to clear the drains, gutters and grass should be stepped up. This consciousness should be cultivated and imbibed by all.
The legitimacy of any Government is derived from the people, so Government exists for the people. No amount of money spent on the welfare of the people is too much for them. After all, the people remain the benefactors that those in Government, who in an ideal situation are stewards, are supposed to be accountable to.
The administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should ensure that no stone is left unturned in achieving this lofty and laudable project.

Igbiki Benibo

Features

Curbing Substance Abuse Among Nigerian Youths

Published

1 week ago

May 8, 2024

The Tide

In September 2023, a 24-year old lady had a birthday party in a South-West state where one of the guests offered to sell sachets of ‘Milo’ for N1,500 each. The guest, a young lady, had mixed marijuana with Milo and put same in Milo sachets, which had been so expertly sealed that no one would have suspected what the content of the sachets was. The guests at the party rushed the ‘Milo sachet’ and went on a binge, drinking and smoking themselves to get ‘high’. After getting high, fight eventually broke out among them and security operatives had to be brought in to maintain the peace. It was at that point that unsuspecting members of the public got to know that the party guests had gone on a marijuana trip. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), substance abuse, or misuse, is the harmful use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs. A psychoactive substance is a drug that affects how the brain works and causes changes in mood, awareness, thoughts, feelings, or behaviour. Examples of psychoactive substances include alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, marijuana and some pain relievers. Other substances abused by Nigerian youths include, ice, molly, cannabis, tobacco, cigarettes, cocaine, sedatives, kolanuts, analgesics, glue, heroine, energy drinks, miraa, tramadol, tranquillisers, cough drops,antimalarial and antibiotics.
Substance abuse is detrimental to health and wellbeing of those involved in it. A Nigerian singer, Joshua Iniyezo aka Solidstar, recently disclosed how substance abused nearly ruined him. According to him, he was introduced to a banned substance called Ice in 2021. He said the substance made him see himself as “a king’’ who didn’t have to pay for any item. One day he walked from Awoyaya in Lagos Mainland to the Oriental Hotel a distance of about 32 kilometres. Another singer, Inetimi Alfred, popularly known as Timaya, said he was introduced to Molly, a synthetic drug with psychedelic effects. The drug initially brought him happiness but eventually led to detrimental effects on his health, including weight loss and financial struggles. His words: “When I took it, I did not understand myself. I was so happy that I dashed all the money in my pocket. So I wanted to just keep feeling like that. That was how I lost a lot of weight. I was not eating, I was just happy. When I said I was taking Molly, I was taking like three pills every day and it felt like medication. I got kicked out of jobs and contracts… people I was doing business with did not want to work with me again.”
So, substance abuse makes the youth to get ‘high’ but it does more than that. It can make them paranoid, it can precipitate heart attack or failure, stroke, seizures, sleep disorders, drowsiness, nausea, respiratory depression, fatigue, disorientation, impairment in memory, learning, concentration, and problem-solving, hallucinations, decline in academic performance, etc. As seen in the case of Timaya, it can result in job loss and can pose a threat to relationships. There is also the tendency to engage in criminal activities when ‘high’. Substance abuse among Nigerian youth is nearing the status of a pandemic. According to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA’s) statistics, about 40 per cent of Nigerian youths between 18 and 35 years are deeply involved in the abuse of drugs. What does the future hold for the country if 4 out of every 10 young people are engaged in substance abuse?
The media is central to our lives. The media shapes our perception of the world. The media is actually the gateway to the mind. The media accesses the mind through the eyes and the ears. So, media contents are food for the mind. The mind is where decisions are made and where opinions are formed. Since the media has access to the mind, the media subtly controls the mind and plays a major role in the decision-making process. So, when the media projects something as good many people in the society take a cue from the media and believe that it is good. In the same vein, when the media projects an act as evil, the society largely avoids it. The media never leaves anything it comes in contact with the same way; it always affects them one way or the other. The media affects individuals in six various ways. The media can affect cognition, which is the mental process. By affecting an individual’s cognition, the media affects his perception to the extent that he begins to see a particular phenomenon in a new light. The media also affects beliefs. The Western media has consistently showcased the Western culture as being superior to the African culture and this, to a degree, has been absorbed by some Africans who try all they can to travel abroad for ‘greener pastures’ only to get there and find out that the grass is always greener on the other side.
The media also affects attitude. If a child is exposed to violence, he begins to see violence as an option and will be tempted to try same every now and then. Another media effect is affect. This has to do with feelings, emotions and moods. Seeing a scene on television or reading about an event can affect the mood of an individual throughout the day. Media also has psychological effect on its audience. This means the media can affectthe orientation of people. The media also affects the behaviour of its users. Behaviour is the culmination of all the effects of media exposure that have been listed. By the time cognition, belief and attitude are affected, behaviour will change. Ladies and gentlemen, in light of the above, I will like to submit that advertently or not, the media has been encouraging substance abuse. This is a global phenomenon and not a Nigerian thing. When a television ad presents a successful musician with a bottle of an alcoholic drink at the background, though the focus of the advertiser from all intents and purposes will be to draw the attention of the society to its alcoholic drink, but the loud message is that “To be as successful as the musician in the ad, take alcohol”. Or, “Successful people take this alcohol; don’t you want to be like them?”
When a musical video glamourises boozing and smoking, what is the message to the society? A song like ‘FotiFoyin’ (brush your teeth with alcohol) encourages the youth to consume alcohol, while a musical video like ‘Asake Loaded’ celebrates smoking. The producers of these musical contents are role models in the society. Some of them are even brand ambassadors. If, as we said, the media is the gateway to the mind, what is the message of these media contents to the society? The media has to be alive to its social responsibility if Nigeria will win the war against substance abuse by the youth. The social responsibility theory of the media mandates the media to put the societal wellbeing at the centre of its activities.
This theory says that the media has a responsibility to the society and should always work in the interest of the society. While a media outfit may be a business organization that must make returns to its shareholders, the operators of the business must realize that they will only continue in business if the society survives. If the society is destroyed, the business outfits operating in it will also go down. The easiest way to destroy a society is to destroy its youths.
If the media understands this responsibility and upholds it, it will be clear that the future of the youth who are being exposed to substance abuse is of more importance than the immediate pecuniary gain they will make by pushing out deleterious contents that will push the youth into seeking substances that would make them high.
The media is a major factor in the wellbeing of the society because it plays a major role in what is permissible or prohibited. This is done through what it promotes or refrains from promoting.
As part of its social responsibility, the media should embark on sensitisation of the public on the dangers inherent in substance abuse. This should be continuous and sustained as the media’s contribution to the wellbeing of society.
The government is the most important factor in curbing substance abuse because government is a change agent. Whatever the government permits gains prominence and whatever it prohibits is frowned at.
Government can curb substance abuse through orientation and reorientation. By deploying its massive resources, the government can get across to all strata of the society on the ills of substance abuse and why it is pertinent for it to be spurned by the youth. By making use of all channels of communication and all media outlets, the government can drive home the point on why substance abuse should not be embraced by the youth.
Another means the government deploys to curb the spread of substance abuse is regulation. The Federal Government has, over the years, come up with various regulations to reduce substance abuse in the country. These include:
The Indian Hemp Decree No. 19 of 1966.
The Indian Hemp (Amendment) Decree No. 34 of 1979.
The Indian Hemp (Amendment) Decree, and the Special Tribunal (Miscellaneous Offences) Decree No. 20 of 1984.
The Special Tribunal (Miscellaneous Offences) (Amendment) Decree of 1986 and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Decree No. 48 of 1989 (as amended by Decree No.33 of 1990, Decree No 15 of 1992 and Decree No. 62 of 1999). These laws were harmonized as an Act of the parliament, CAP N30 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004. This Act established the NDLEA.
The government also fights substance abuse through Enforcement.
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) is the agency of government primarily saddled with the enforcement of substance abuse laws. The agency, which is under the Federal Ministry of Justice, is charged with eliminating the growing, processing, manufacturing, selling, exporting, and trafficking of hard drugs. The agency was established by Decree Number 48 of 1989. (1) The NDLEA is present in international airports, seaports, and border crossings.
The last leg is prosecution.
Section 11 (a) of NDLEA Act makes it an offence for a person, who having no lawful authority to do so, to engage in the importation, production, manufacturing, processing, growing and planting of cocaine, heroin, LSD or any other drugs of similar nature. The offence is punishable on conviction with life imprisonment. Section 11(b) and (c) also spell out punishments for those who contravene NDLEA laws. The import is that NDLEA is the primary agency with prosecutorial powers on substance abuse. The Nigeria Police Force can also prosecute.
Of the four legs to combating substance abuse, it is only orientation and reorientation that involve the three tiers of government. The remaining three, regulation, enforcement and prosecution are within the ambits of the federal government. How can NDLEA be on top of the situation of those smoking igbo at Igbo Ora or those sniffing Kushy at Kishi?
The point here is that substance abuse among Nigerian youths is on the rise because the strategy is wrong. Every criminality is local. Therefore, criminality is best fought or combated at the local level. Nigeria cannot successfully overcome the challenge of substance abuse among the youth unless the states and local government authorities are fully involved in it. That brings us again to the issue of the elephant in the room: restructuring.
We need to restructure the policing system as well as the substance abuse regulation and enforcement systems to defeat substance abuse among the nation’s youth.
The media and the government have critical roles to play in reducing substance abuse among the youth. The media needs to take its social responsibilities seriously and ensures that it projects values that would make the society better and stronger.
The government needs to take its sensitization and orientation responsibilities very seriously. Then, the system of government that makes the fight against substance abuse more of a matter of the federal government needs to be tinkered with so that all tiers of government can own the battle and deliver our youths from the jaws of substance.
Olanrewaju is Special Adviser (Media)/Chief Press Secretary to Oyo State Governor.

By: Sulaimon Olanrewaju

Features

Curbing Substance Abuse Among Nigerian Youths

Published

1 week ago

May 8, 2024

The Tide

Substance abuse is detrimental to health and wellbeing of those involved in it. A Nigerian singer, Joshua Iniyezo aka Solidstar, recently disclosed how substance abused nearly ruined him. According to him, he was introduced to a banned substance called Ice in 2021. He said the substance made him see himself as ‘’a king’’ who didn’t have to pay for any item. One day he walked from Awoyaya in Lagos Mainland to the Oriental Hotel a distance of about 32 kilometres. Another singer, Inetimi Alfred, popularly known as Timaya, said he was introduced to Molly, a synthetic drug with psychedelic effects. The drug initially brought him happiness but eventually led to detrimental effects on his health, including weight loss and financial struggles. His words: “When I took it, I did not understand myself. I was so happy that I dashed all the money in my pocket. So I wanted to just keep feeling like that. That was how I lost a lot of weight. I was not eating, I was just happy. When I said I was taking Molly, I was taking like three pills every day and it felt like medication. I got kicked out of jobs and contracts… people I was doing business with did not want to work with me again.”

So, substance abuse makes the youth to get ‘high’ but it does more than that. It can make them paranoid, it can precipitate heart attack or failure, stroke, seizures, sleep disorders, drowsiness, nausea, respiratory depression, fatigue, disorientation, impairment in memory, learning, concentration, and problem-solving, hallucinations, decline in academic performance, etc. As seen in the case of Timaya, it can result in job loss and can pose a threat to relationships. There is also the tendency to engage in criminal activities when ‘high’. Substance abuse among Nigerian youth is nearing the status of a pandemic. According to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA’s) statistics, about 40 per cent of Nigerian youths between 18 and 35 years are deeply involved in the abuse of drugs. What does the future hold for the country if 4 out of every 10 young people are engaged in substance abuse?

The media is central to our lives. The media shapes our perception of the world. The media is actually the gateway to the mind. The media accesses the mind through the eyes and the ears. So, media contents are food for the mind. The mind is where decisions are made and where opinions are formed. Since the media has access to the mind, the media subtly controls the mind and plays a major role in the decision-making process. So, when the media projects something as good many people in the society take a cue from the media and believe that it is good. In the same vein, when the media projects an act as evil, the society largely avoids it. The media never leaves anything it comes in contact with the same way; it always affects them one way or the other. The media affects individuals in six various ways. The media can affect cognition, which is the mental process. By affecting an individual’s cognition, the media affects his perception to the extent that he begins to see a particular phenomenon in a new light. The media also affects beliefs. The Western media has consistently showcased the Western culture as being superior to the African culture and this, to a degree, has been absorbed by some Africans who try all they can to travel abroad for ‘greener pastures’ only to get there and find out that the grass is always greener on the other side.

The media also affects attitude. If a child is exposed to violence, he begins to see violence as an option and will be tempted to try same every now and then. Another media effect is affect. This has to do with feelings, emotions and moods. Seeing a scene on television or reading about an event can affect the mood of an individual throughout the day. Media also has psychological effect on its audience. This means the media can affect the orientation of people. The media also affects the behaviour of its users. Behaviour is the culmination of all the effects of media exposure that have been listed. By the time cognition, belief and attitude are affected, behaviour will change. Ladies and gentlemen, in light of the above, I will like to submit that advertently or not, the media has been encouraging substance abuse. This is a global phenomenon and not a Nigerian thing. When a television ad presents a successful musician with a bottle of an alcoholic drink at the background, though the focus of the advertiser from all intents and purposes will be to draw the attention of the society to its alcoholic drink, but the loud message is that “To be as successful as the musician in the ad, take alcohol”. Or, “Successful people take this alcohol; don’t you want to be like them?”

When a musical video glamourises boozing and smoking, what is the message to the society? A song like ‘FotiFoyin’ (brush your teeth with alcohol) encourages the youth to consume alcohol, while a musical video like ‘Asake Loaded’ celebrates smoking. The producers of these musical contents are role models in the society. Some of them are even brand ambassadors. If, as we said, the media is the gateway to the mind, what is the message of these media contents to the society? The media has to be alive to its social responsibility if Nigeria will win the war against substance abuse by the youth. The social responsibility theory of the media mandates the media to put the societal wellbeing at the centre of its activities.

This theory says that the media has a responsibility to the society and should always work in the interest of the society. While a media outfit may be a business organization that must make returns to its shareholders, the operators of the business must realize that they will only continue in business if the society survives. If the society is destroyed, the business outfits operating in it will also go down. The easiest way to destroy a society is to destroy its youths.

If the media understands this responsibility and upholds it, it will be clear that the future of the youth who are being exposed to substance abuse is of more importance than the immediate pecuniary gain they will make by pushing out deleterious contents that will push the youth into seeking substances that would make them high.

The media is a major factor in the wellbeing of the society because it plays a major role in what is permissible or prohibited. This is done through what it promotes or refrains from promoting.
As part of its social responsibility, the media should embark on sensitization of the public on the dangers inherent in substance abuse. This should be continuous and sustained as the media’s contribution to the wellbeing of society.

**The government is the most important factor in curbing substance abuse because government is a change agent. Whatever the government permits gains prominence and whatever it prohibits is frowned at.

Government can curb substance abuse through orientation and reorientation. By deploying its massive resources, the government can get across to all strata of the society on the ills of substance abuse and why it is pertinent for it to be spurned by the youth. By making use of all channels of communication and all media outlets, the government can drive home the point on why substance abuse should not be embraced by the youth.
Another means the government deploys to curb the spread of substance abuse is regulation. The Federal Government has, over the years, come up with various regulations to reduce substance abuse in the country. These include:
The Indian Hemp Decree No. 19 of 1966.
The Indian Hemp (Amendment) Decree No. 34 of 1979.
The Indian Hemp (Amendment) Decree, and the Special Tribunal (Miscellaneous Offences) Decree No. 20 of 1984.
The Special Tribunal (Miscellaneous Offences) (Amendment) Decree of 1986 and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Decree No. 48 of 1989 (as amended by Decree No.33 of 1990, Decree No 15 of 1992 and Decree No. 62 of 1999). These laws were harmonized as an Act of the parliament, CAP N30 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004. This Act established the NDLEA.
The government also fights substance abuse through Enforcement.
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) is the agency of government primarily saddled with the enforcement of substance abuse laws. The agency, which is under the Federal Ministry of Justice, is charged with eliminating the growing, processing, manufacturing, selling, exporting, and trafficking of hard drugs. The agency was established by Decree Number 48 of 1989.[1] The NDLEA is present in international airports, seaports, and border crossings.

The last leg is prosecution.
Section 11 (a) of NDLEA Act makes it an offence for a person, who having no lawful authority to do so, to engage in the importation, production, manufacturing, processing, growing and planting of cocaine, heroin, LSD or any other drugs of similar nature. The offence is punishable on conviction with life imprisonment. Section 11(b) and (c) also spell out punishments for those who contravene NDLEA laws. The import is that NDLEA is the primary agency with prosecutorial powers on substance abuse. The Nigeria Police Force can also prosecute.

Of the four legs to combating substance abuse, it is only orientation and reorientation that involve the three tiers of government. The remaining three, regulation, enforcement and prosecution are within the ambits of the federal government. How can NDLEA be on top of the situation of those smoking igbo at Igbo Ora or those sniffing Kushy at Kishi?

The point here is that substance abuse among Nigerian youths is on the rise because the strategy is wrong. Every criminality is local. Therefore, criminality is best fought or combated at the local level. Nigeria cannot successfully overcome the challenge of substance abuse among the youth unless the states and local government authorities are fully involved in it. That brings us again to the issue of the elephant in the room: restructuring.

**We need to restructure the policing system as well as the substance abuse regulation and enforcement systems to defeat substance abuse among the nation’s youth.

The media and the government have critical roles to play in reducing substance abuse among the youth. The media needs to take its social responsibilities seriously and ensures that it projects values that would make the society better and stronger.

The government needs to take its sensitization and orientation responsibilities very seriously. Then, the system of government that makes the fight against substance abuse more of a matter of the federal government needs to be tinkered with so that all tiers of government can own the battle and deliver our youths from the jaws of substance.

Sulaimon Olanrewaju
Olanrewaju is Special Adviser (Media)/Chief Press Secretary to Oyo State Governor,