Drug trafficking: Why do they do it?

I recently saw the pictures of a young Nigerian man in his 30s that was being prepared for the slaughter in Malaysia on account of being caught trying to bring narcotics into that country. Now I know some will come up and say (or at least think it in their myopic brains) that it is […]

I recently saw the pictures of a young Nigerian man in his 30s that was being prepared for the slaughter in Malaysia on account of being caught trying to bring narcotics into that country. Now I know some will come up and say (or at least think it in their myopic brains) that it is because “country hard”! Last week I engaged in a discussion with a director of a public utility on the evil of 419 and he tried to rationalise it by coming up with all sorts of excuses for the fraudsters. As I shot down every single one (preparatory to shooting him too), he wisely decided to quit while he still had some modicum of respect left. There is no excuse you can give me that can make me think it is acceptable for you to engage in drug trafficking!

Now agreeing, without conceding that there is a reason for you to do it (refer to the last paragraph), why would you take the risk of going to a country where you know they will kill you if you are caught? Countries where they automatically view every young Nigerian that shows up at their airports as a potential trafficker? Countries where their judicial systems make Nigeria’s look like the best in the world. A place where you don’t understand a word of the proceedings until you get to the end and see the judge sliding a hand across his throat in that time-honoured gesture that means the same in any language! And then you start to speak gibberish.

I looked at the picture of the young man again and wondered: why did he do it? So now he is dead. I mean, like in really dead. Not a practice run as you do in game shows like The Cube, to decide if you can cope with being properly dead, but dead as in no longer in existence. And whatever might be your faith (or non-faith), you know this life is a single-use commodity. You don’t get to come back once you check out. If anything exists after that, it is also bad news for you (unless you are Hindu or something and believe you might come back to this world as a cow, in which case, you better pray you don’t end up with a herdsman that will make you trek from Cape to Cairo).

So what am I saying? Knowing this, the question arises: what kind of money can be worth the risk of getting your head chopped off? I know I will think twice about taking risks that could lead to me having a finger chopped off while I am compos mentis, never mind having my head separated from my body!! People, like Humpty Dumpty, it cannot be put back together again. They cannot come back and say “we have seen how barbaric we are with this head-chopping business and will no longer do it. Give those flailing limbs, their heads back”! It doesn’t work that way. Why then do they do it? To build a house in the village and be made a Chief Gburugburu of the Universe with some demented opinion of their importance or to show up at an ‘owambe’, spraying bundles of money on the misshapen backsides of some multi-coloured soyoyos, while a Wasiu Ayinde waxes lyrical about how you are the inventor of money?

 Wale Bakare writes from Lagos