As drugs, substances ruin our youths

The huge disaster which hard drugs and substances have done (and is still doing) to our youths in the country, once again, came to the fore when a teenager on Friday April 12, 2023 allegedly killed his 50-year-old mother in the Rimin Kebe quarters of Kano metropolis. It was gathered that the suspect identified as Ibrahim Musa immediately fled the scene of the crime after stabbing his mother. The victim whose body lied in her pool of blood was taken to a hospital in a tricycle but was pronounced dead on arrival by the doctor on duty.

A neighbour of the deceased told reporters that he was standing outside his house when he suddenly heard a screaming voice from the woman’s home. “Upon rushing to the house, we found the deceased, who had been stabbed several times with a knife, screaming for help,” he said. Soon after the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer of the Kano State Police Command announced the arrest of the suspect. He explained that the suspect, who confessed to the crime, would be charged to court upon completion of investigations.

Speaking to reporters, the suspect’s elder sister said, the suspect has spent more than a year without coming to where we are. He has been living with his father at Kurna since after he suffered from a mental health condition. The moment the suspect entered the house, he asked of her. When he was told that his mother was not around, he demanded that she should be called to come over. The mother came happily to welcome him. “When she opened the door, I heard her shouting and I quickly came out and saw Ibrahim with a knife. He attempted attacking me too but I ran away. After stabbing our mother, he threw the knife outside and ran away”, Ibrahim’s sister said; adding that the last time their mother (the deceased) went to see Ibrahim was during the last month of Ramadan, but Ibrahim chased her and she ran to hide in a room while he was held by the people around.

Indeed, it is no news again especially in the northern parts of the country that hard drugs and substances have turned a large chunk of the present generation of our youths into murderous children, killer wives, rapists’ schoolboys, bandits, reckless drivers on the highways, and lunatic scavengers at dumpsites. Aside of Ibrahim’s mother, several similar incidences have turned many parents, spouses, siblings, and other family relations into victims of violent attacks. In November 2017 for example, a house wife in Abuja identified as Maryam Sanda stabbed her husband Bilyaminu in the chest and abdomen. Maryam reportedly drove Bilyaminu to Maitama hospital where he was confirmed dead. Earlier on the fateful day, Maryam had fought with her husband and insisted he divorced her because of some correspondences she found on Bilyaminu’s phone.

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Five days after Maryam’s alleged murder of Bilyaminu, another house wife, Hauwau, in Zamfara state, Nigeria, stabbed her husband, Bilyaminu Yusuf, with a broken bottle. The infuriated woman committed the alleged crime in Filin Jirgi area of Gusau metropolis. The victim was rushed to the hospital in blood-stained clothes where he was admitted. Unconfirmed sources then said she committed the act because her husband was planning to marry another wife.

As affirmed by medical sociologists, an attack on a fellow human being with a weapon or instrument that could lead to death cannot be carried by a normal person in his normal senses under normal circumstances. According to them, a violent attack with a knife, broken bottle, machete, gun or Improvised Explosive Device (IED) is only easily made possible under the influence of drugs or substances or when the attacker has lost his or her sanity. Such becomes more difficult if the target is related by birth, fosterage or marriage, to the perpetrator of the crime. Jeremy Frank, a Pennsylvanian mental health psychologist, asserts that many drug addicts believe that illicit drug consumption helps them to forget their problems that may include unemployment, limited access to basic necessities of life and lack of parental love or care.

The abuse of drugs and substances by youths generally has become an endemic phenomenon in recent times. The involvement of young girls, hijab-wearing women (single as well as married); and even drop-outs from the Almajiri school system in the northern part of Nigeria makes it a disturbing trend. This portends a great danger for the future of Nigeria with a worse consequence for the North of the country; a region where poverty, illiteracy and disease have remained pervasive for many decades. Generally, youths abuse cough syrup because of its codeine content, which regrettably transforms them into social miscreants, violent children, wicked husbands, and rebellious housewives. Youths also sniff sewage lines, pit latrines, and solution (a chemical-based substance used in mending tires by vulcanizers).

This column once expressed concern over this ruinous phenomenon when it published the piece “Another socio-economic threat to Arewa” on this page in the October 7, 2017 edition of Daily Trust on Saturday. In this edition, this writer quoted the declaration at that time by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) that “drug abuse is responsible for 99 percent of crimes committed in Kaduna.” Nearly six years after, the trend is only better than imagined as it keeps worsening.

If our leaders care at all for the future of our region and of Nigeria, they must show commitment to tackling the generational challenges of Arewa youths. Besides implementing an all-inclusive strategic plan that would focus on young Nigerians, governors and LG chairmen should be seen to create diverse opportunities that would cater for the socio-economic, educational and recreational needs of youths. Skills acquisition and employment opportunities should be at the center of any youths’ empowerment initiative. Leaders could use sporting activities to reduce the easy resort by youths to drug abuse. The more our younger people have progressive opportunities to explore, the less they would think of drugs as solutions to their problems.

Meanwhile, the NDLEA must continue to clamp down on hard drug marketers. Their job remains unfinished until the jinx in the drug cartel is completely broken. Beyond this, however, is the need for parents to create time for their children’s moral training and the attention owed them. May Allah (SWT) make our children the comfort of our eyes and not the source of our adversities or even death, amin.