The staggering statistical figures of Nigerians getting addicted to hard drugs annually have elevated the menace of drug abuse to a height, deserving urgent national attention. From Marijuana (Indian hemp) to codeine and other opioids, records from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) say the social evil is responsible for most of the 32 different crimes committed in the country today. While experts suggest ways to curb the social malaise, some rehabilitated drug addicts with Christ Against Drug Abuse Ministries, CADAM, also shared their experiences with Yemisi Olusina.
Two years ago, Alice Amadi’s life was the stuff of dreams. A graduate of Law and a fashion icon, who won the best dressed female at the Enugu Law School, she was the envy of her contemporaries. While her contemporaries were praying and struggling to have a suitor, beautiful Amadi was already basking in the euphoria of a loving handsome man, who gave her all the attention and soon got her engaged.
But that was the peak. Unknown to Amadi, the commitment was not to last long. The young man soon broke his engagement to her and Amadi’s world, took a sad turn.
She was down-trodden, helpless and lost total interest in life.
One day, Amadi met an old friend, who promised to assist her. Not minding the kind of help, a desperate Amadi simply jumped at the offer. But her friend was a drug courier.
“I met an old friend of mine in the University, who said she was going to give me something to help me come out of my emotional depression. Without any second thought, I gave in to her. I became vulnerable and that launched me into drugs,” she recalled.
Thus began the slide from which she is just getting out. She slid into cocaine use and then, into addiction.
It was a whole new life. With an expensive habit to fund, every money she made began to thin out. She knew it, but cocaine had made her a slave, complete with shackles. “I was expending all my finances on drugs. My fashion sense dropped, I started looking haggard. I started isolating myself from the family. I lost trust in my family; I lost my integrity; I simply lost all. It got to a point when I had to take my mother’s car to a dealer to hold because I needed money for the drugs,” she said.
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When at this point, her family noticed something was wrong, all their efforts to rescue her was not successful.
Respite, however, came in 2017 when her sister came in contact with Christ Against Drugs Abuse Ministry (CADAM), an arm of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, which runs rehabilitation centres in Araga, near Epe in Lagos State and Eredo, near Epe.
Reflecting on the progress she has made at CADAM, Amadi said: “I have since learnt how to manage my anger, how to bow to instructions and authorities. Despite the fact that I worked with a Human Management firm, it was at CADAM that I learnt how to manage people. Spiritually, I’m getting stronger. Now I know I have to read my Bible, pray often and appreciate people better.”
While Amadi was lured into drug addiction at adulthood, Mr. Babatunde Pelemo was not.
At age 10, Pelemo was introduced to cigarette smoking. By age 11, he was already smoking marijuana. By the time he got into the university, he was into hard drugs. Because of his affliction, with the disastrous habit, Pelemo, who had the ambition of becoming a celebrated journalist, was rusticated from the institution few months to graduation.
Looking back at those years, Pelemo, told The Nigerian Xpress his story: “I got lured into the habit of taking hard drugs by my search to get fitted into a group. At home, I was never appreciated. I was never commended for anything I did. My case was more of complex than peer influence,” he said.
Unfortunately, his search linked him with the wrong group. He said: “I met a group eventually around where we lived but it was not a complimentary group. They were a group of smokers and since this was the only group available at that time, I had no other choice but to join. Although they gave me what I wanted (an avenue to express myself), I started expressing myself in the way of drugs. I started with cigarettes at 10-years old and graduated into hard drugs in the later years. By the time I got into the university, I joined a cult group and became a terrorist in school.”
Towards the end of his programme in the university, a crisis broke out and since he was renowned for drugs and other bad habits, he was one of the wanted suspects by the school authorities and policemen. Of course, “I ran away from school and never went back,” he said.
Thus ended his dream of running a career in Mass Communication. But Pelemo was not remorseful. “Since no good person wanted to associate with me, I went further to associate with more hardened people. I became more hardened, did more dubious things to fund my expensive habit,”
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Even when he followed CADAM to their office, his plan was only to dupe them. “When I came into contact with CADAM, my objective was to dupe them and not to get cured. But this did not work because the person, who introduced me to CADAM, is strongly connected to Christ. I was broken for Christ and have since dedicated my life to the service of Christ,” he said.
Also sharing her experience before gaining her restoration via CADAM was Ola Asags. According to her, her encounter with hard drugs was prompted by her ‘sincere’ love for her boyfriend. The boyfriend, according to her, was then into drugs. Out of love and desire to share all things with her would-be husband, she got hooked to drugs.
“I did not know it was a dangerous adventure, I was doing it for love. When the effect became obvious and I began to have the ‘jonesing; experience, my boyfriend deserted me,” she told The Nigerian Xpress.
From then on, the situation became slippery, as this woman began to steal from their family members and friends to get on with the habit.
Like others, her parents and family members shut their doors against her. “They wouldn’t want me near their house because they must lose one treasure or another immediately after my visit. After a while, I took to the street and packed totally to the joint where I felt much more at home,” recalled Asags.
As the days went by, her addiction to the evil habit grew worse that she couldn’t even resist extorting money from churches.” I could beg for money from individuals whether big or small. One day, I went to a church and told them one big lie that made them to cough out the sum of N50, 000, which I ended up spending on drugs with my friends,’ says Asags.
This Delta-born lady continued on this terrain until one day when one of her friends met her waterloo due to acute cocaine overdose.
“I came back one evening to meet a crowd gathered round a Ghana-must-go bag. When I drew closer and peeped into the bag, I almost fainted at what I saw. It was the compressed body of my friend, who was almost six feet tall. She was obviously thrown away to avoid the wrath of the state government on the joint dwellers,” explained Asags.
It was this fear of sudden undignifying death, coupled with the mindless way of disposing the corpse that drew her mind to CADAM, whose ministers had been coming to their joint on evangelism.
She was rehabilitated at Eredo village and thereafter at Akute.
Because of his affliction with the disastrous habit, 41-year-old Abegunde Jude, abandoned his academic pursuit at Yaba College of Technology, got severed from his wife and daughter and sent his Commander of the Nigerian Navy father to an early grave. He, however, remains grateful to CADAM officials, who have helped him to return to normalcy.
Recalling his years at the joint, Jude said: “Life at the joint was simply horrible. We were exposed to the police, NDLEA officials and dreadful diseases like tuberculosis, AIDS, pneumonia, and death. CADAM has helped me to re-discover myself. I hope to re-unite with my family, especially my 7-year-old daughter whom I have not seen for more than four years now.”
Sprawled all over Lagos city and in spite of the efforts put in place by the state government, to rid the city of homeless residents and criminals, are joints where drug addicts lived. Their dirt-locked hair, blackened nails, blood-shot sleepy eyes, dry and scaly skin are some of the features that easily give them away.
Nigerian youths, both male and female, according to findings, indulge in the habit of taking tobacco, Indian hemp, cocaine, morphine, heroine, alcohol, caffeine, glue, barbiturates and opioids, such as tramadol, benylin, cough syrups and shisha in their various daily activities.
Forty-six per cent of these youths, the research affirms had taken one type of these drugs or another between the ages of 20 and 36.
Meanwhile, factors ranging from unmitigated peer influence, parental negligence and bad examples from superstars, who openly glamourise such drinks while on stage have been quoted to be responsible for the increase in the clamour for the hard drugs.
Decrying the trend was Dr. Dokun Adedeji, a medical practitioner and the National Coordinator of CADAM, who told The Nigerian Xpress that the rehabilitation centre was established to restore life to numerous addicts whose relatives had given up on life because of drug intake.
“Most of these people are from well-to-do homes where they had almost ruined different glorious careers. Part of our job here is to draw and keep them in Christ and keep them busy with any vocation of their choices,” the doctor said.
Explaining how people get addicted, Dr. Adedeji said the initial decision to take drugs was usually voluntary but they got stuck into it gradually with time. “The neural pathways in their brain change and so they become unable to control themselves and resist the urge to take the drugs. The brain, for all you care simply rewards pleasurable experiences, such as food, intimacy and laughter with surges of feel-good chemicals like dopamine than chocolate and the rush of the euphoria is what compels them to repeat the experience. So, the more someone uses drugs, the more he or she conditions the brain to anticipate the same substance-fueled pleasant sensations,” he said.
Meanwhile, the effects of these substances are damaging to both the addict and the society in general. To the addict, Adedeji said, “prolonged drug dependence affects every organ of the body. It damages the immune system, causing the addict to be susceptible to infections. It brings about cardiovascular problems, abdominal pains, liver over-exertion, seizures and stroke among other problems.”
Other social effects, he noted, includes loss of employment, relationship loss, incarceration, financial trouble, homelessness and risky sexual behaviour.
No addict can, however, help himself, which is why they need to seek help as soon as possible.
This was what CADAM identified several years ago when it came up with the centre. The method is “We usually visit the joints time after time to preach Christ to these addicts and allow them to voluntarily agree to come to the rehab for total healing.”
Speaking more on why the inmates were kept so far away from the public, Dr. Adedeji said it was intentional. His words: “We keep them far away so that they can freely imbibe the new way of life which is a life that is free of drugs. Here we combine prayer with orthodox medical treatment and keep them far away from people, who may likely give them money or lend them a helping hand to buy drugs for them when the urge comes again. With all these rightfully put in place, they are made to gradually ease themselves out of the habit.”
Mr. Pelemo, who heads the men’s wing of the rehab, however, observed that if parents would devote more time to the welfare of their children, studying and attending to their individual yearnings, the number of youths taking to hard drugs would be reduced in the country. “Parents need to take time out to be there for their children. They should praise them when necessary, correct them in love, they shouldn’t only see their wrong but commend them whenever they do anything right no matter how little. Children need kind and encouraging words to keep them glued to the instructions and words of their parents, especially during the adolescent stage when they are usually turned between childhood and adulthood. The child that you did not pay the right attention to will definitely go out there to find a group that will have time for him. And if he or she falls into the wrong place, the entire family will bear the brunt,” Pelemo told The Nigerian Xpress.
Stressing that these days, most people go into pharmaceutical drugs, Pelemo called for more awareness of the danger of the intake of these drugs, adding that the job should not be left for the governments alone. His words: “For greater victory over the menace of hard drugs, parents should wage the war against it at home; teachers should do the same at schools; religious leaders should talk about it at their various gatherings and everyone should be his brother’s keeper as we watch out for any cue. This way, there will be more awareness and the problem will be well-tackled.”
Encouraging others under the influence of hard drugs, Pelemo said: “Do not see your situation as the end of the world. See the habit as your flaw, your emotional downtime, a phase in your lifetime that will definitely pass with time. Find someone you can talk to and seek help. It is not the people, who hear about it that will kill you; it is the drugs that will kill you. To avoid this, get help quickly.”