‘Few families are drug-free in Nigeria’

Hajiya Aisha Abubakar is a software engineer with passion for counseling families with drug addicts. She does this through Parents Against Drug Abuse (PADA), a non-governmental organisation which provides support to families with drug issues. In this interview, she says that drug abuse assumes a serious problem in the country. What is  Parents Against Drug […]

Hajiya Aisha Abubakar is a software engineer with passion for counseling families with drug addicts. She does this through Parents Against Drug Abuse (PADA), a non-governmental organisation which provides support to families with drug issues. In this interview, she says that drug abuse assumes a serious problem in the country.

What is  Parents Against Drug Abuse (PADA) all about?
 
Parents Against Drug Abuse  is a group of parents, mothers, fathers and youths who have come together to take a proactive stand against the devastating effect of drug use within communities. We provide support to families within the home front, schools and communities. We also provide awareness on drug use and its effect.

 Do you operate in all the states of Nigeria?
 We operate internationally. PADA has gone beyond our national boundary.
 
Is PADA just out to dissuade youths from engaging in drugs use or do you carry out research, treat and rehabilitate addicts? 
 Mostly, it is more of assisting the families who have drug addicts. We do rehabilitate if we have the funds to do it. Incidentally, most families that I am working with have the funds to rehabilitate their children. So what we normally do is to visit families and find out if they have a drug addict and then advise them on what to do. I worked in a rehab hospital as a volunteer for almost two years and I learnt a lot from there. I have seen families coming to the hospital with their wards for treatment and returning to the hospital again with the same problem. And the families are worried, wondering when the situation is going to get better. So we decided to come up with PADA, to bring families together, support and advise them on what to do to overcome the reoccurring drug issue.
 
How do you identify the families you work with?
 They come to me. What I realised is that very few families in Nigeria are not affected by drug misuse. You will find out that in every family, a member is suffering from this problem. It is either your sister or brother or your cousin. There must be someone in the family doing it. That is how bad it is. So the moment they hear about PADA, they come. When we meet them in hospitals, we try to change their view and not feel that the hospital will just rehabilitate and discharge and then they are disappointed later when the problems resurface. There is no aftercare and that is why we have created this family support for them.
We do advocacy as well. We go to schools and communities. Getting information is a major problem. Sometimes you see a family dealing with someone who is doing drugs but they do not know where to go and get help. The only thing they know is punishment. So we educate them on how they can get help and they also tell other families who have the same problem. We help them get rehab centres and counselors.
 
Do you offer the services free or you get paid?
 We provide free services.
 
How do you finance your activities?
 We operate as a voluntary organisation and all my staff are volunteers. So we operate with what we have and when we do have funds, we go to universities and secondary schools for advocacy.
 
How would you describe the drug issue in Nigeria, where are we heading to as a country?
 I can start talking about drug abuse in Nigeria till next week, yet I will not finish describing to you the enormity of the problem. Unfortunately, there is nothing that is being done about it. I am still in the field but I am demoralised because of the lack of support from the Nigerian government. Internationally, I am happy because I get support from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which trained me. We have a lot of youths doing drugs because of unemployment. There are virtually no opportunities for the youths and that frustrates a lot of them. When they are idle, some people will just walk up to them and say try this, it will help you forget your problems and they decide to get into drugs. So we have a lot to do in tackling the issue of drugs. Otherwise, one day, we may not have a nation. When youths are getting too involved in drugs and everywhere drugs are sold freely, then, there is a serious problem. We go to universities and we hear shocking stories. There was a student who said if he does not take drugs before going for lectures, he does not understand anything the lecturer teaches. So it has become more of a public health issue than a criminal issue. The NDLEA arrests these people, detains them, after sometime, release them. There is no rehabilitation.
Families are coming from everywhere-Maiduguri, Kano, Gombe, Katsina-to seek help. It is a psychiatric problem. How do you expect a Nigerian to function well when his or her brain is affected by drugs? About 50 per cent of Nigerians are doing drugs, especially the youth, and if we continue like this, do you think we will have a country in the future? So the Nigerian government needs to do more about the drug issue. Even those who don’t have criminal minds, by the time they start doing drugs and they run short of money, they do anything to get money to buy the drugs. They are also aggressive. I have seen a drug patient who attempted to kill a doctor in a rehab centre. They get violent when they don’t get drugs. Even when their parents are talking to them, they react violently.
 
You talked about NDLEA arresting drug addicts and locking them up, are you in partnership with them to try and counsel these victims and possibly rehabilitate them?              
I came across them through UNODC. When I started PADA, I invited the NDLEA and they came to my programme and said they needed me. But their system needs to be changed, which they are in the process of doing now, especially the counseling aspect of it.  When they arrest these suspects what do they do with them? The message we are trying to give NDLEA now is that in as much as drug abuse is criminal, it is also a public health matter. So it is not enough to jail and beat addicts, you must have a way to rehabilitate them and then focus on the dealers to ensure demand reduction. That is what we are trying to do and I think they are coming to terms with that. Anytime we have a meeting with them, they have something new to present. So we have gotten to a level where we are in partnership with them. There is a difference between the dealer and the addict. We look at the addicts as victims who need help, so it is not enough to arrest them, keep them in prison and when you release them, they go back to the same thing. Those who come out of NDLEA cells, when you ask them what happens in there, they will tell you they didn’t get any rehabilitation. The government has to restructure the NDLEA and give it more money and train its personnel.
 
What is the current age of initiation into drugs now?
 The age of initiation now is between 12 and 14 years but the age prevalence is between 17 and 30. But getting to 40 is something else. If by 40 years one is still doing drugs, I am sure one’s brain must be scattered by then.