Drug abuse in Kano and role of parents

The recent revelation by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), that youth in Kano State were still leading in the drug abuse index of the agency for the whole country, is a brutal truth that should  serve as a wake-up call to the people of the state. The state NDLEA director, Alhaji Ahmadu Garba, […]

The recent revelation by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), that youth in Kano State were still leading in the drug abuse index of the agency for the whole country, is a brutal truth that should  serve as a wake-up call to the people of the state.
The state NDLEA director, Alhaji Ahmadu Garba, stated this while reviewing the year 2015 activities in the state.
But what should also worry the people of the state is that with all the Islamiyya schools imparting religious knowledge, one would have thought by the time the children become old enough to be involved in drugs, such knowledge would steer them off that path.
Or could it be that the majority of the youth that take drugs didn’t attend Islamiyya schools or have abandoned the knowledge?
This week the state government said it had embarked on rigorous awareness campaign on the dangers and repercussions associated with young people getting involved in drugs and substance abuse.
Incidentally,  the Director General of Kano State Directorate of Youth Development and Economic Empowerment, Ado Abba Tudun Wada, said according to records the greater percentage of drug peddlers in the state were non-indigenous people while the greater percentage of victims of drug abuse were the indigenes of the state. He also said the government, in collaboration with other anti-drug abuse agencies had seized and destroyed drugs worth billions of naira to curb the menace in the state.
In any case, what is the role of parents in the fight against drug abuse?  The government may do its part, such as arresting and prosecuting drug peddlers and doing its best in seeing drugs are not brought into the state, but it cannot achieve much if parents don’t do their part as the first people with the responsibility of taking care of their children.
The alarming thing is that women are also into drug abuse in Kano; they usually take overdose of cough syrup to get high. Something is definitely wrong with the society if as I pointed out above, the society is supposed to be Islamic with strict adherence to the rule of the religion, which forbids taking intoxicating substances.
Are parents themselves inculcating good habits in their children or do they look the other way, while blaming the government and shifting their responsibility to teachers?
Some would think that only the children of the poor take drugs or other local substances, but then the children of the rich also take drugs of higher grade  that are more expensive.
There are so many questions that need urgent answers if the evil of drug abuse is to be combated in the state.
In the local setting within Kano City for example, if you go to some areas you will see the drug abusers and they live with their parents there.
Some years ago, a woman that lives in Abuja was always lamenting that on many occasions she went to Kano, she would notice that many young boys have turned into drug addicts in her area.
She said if she expressed sadness, she would be told that it was the way things have turned out.
Even if it were so, should the parents fold their arms and allow the lives and future of their children to be destroyed; that their children become a nuisance to the society.
Just last week  a friend told me that she saw a man wrapping ‘things’ in Kano, and somebody told her it was drugs.
The society itself, or the community, is also not doing anything, because if some areas are notorious for drug abuse, where the addicts live with their parents, one would have thought the parents, the elders and even the ward heads should tackle it by holding meetings on how to protect the children.
Like in other places in the world, the security agencies know the notorious places where drugs are peddled and taken and they make occasional raids, though sometimes instead of them going silently and making arrests, they blare their siren and the criminals run away; as if intentionally alerting them to escape arrest.
Still the drug barons may also not be unknown to security agencies, but one never hears of their arrest, much less prosecution.
Kano people should all come together and fight drug abuse that is undermining the development of their youth into productive members of the society.
Kano should not be the destination for hard drugs by people who don’t care about the impact of the drugs on the users so long as they make money.
The federal government should also have more stringent penalties for drug barons and peddlers, to make the business unattractive.