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Trapped in the Traffick: Growing Problems of Drug Consumption in Lagos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Axel Klein
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Extract

The literature on drugs in Africa includes policy statements by government officials which, by and large, follow the line set by international organisations created to design counter-measures to drug consumption and trafficking, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) of the United Nations. At this level the debate revolves largely around the effectiveness of different preventative strategies; control programmes and the performance of agencies are evaluated, and authors often bewail the perversion of moral values in the countries concerned, while appeals for financial assistance figure frequently in the media. Much less well known are the oral traditions and the popular culture in which the drug users, traffickers, and barons are ascribed certain roles. I would like to compare the material contained in these different bodies of work with my own field observations from the drug ‘scene’ in both high and low density areas of Lagos.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , December 1994 , pp. 657 - 677
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 It is widely assumed that the consumption and cultivation of cannabis was introduced to Nigeria by soldiers returning from India after World War II. See Borrofica, A., ‘Mental Illness and Indian Hemp in Lagos, Nigeria’, in East African Medical Journal (Nairobi), 43, 1966, pp. 377–84.Google Scholar

2 This is a definition commonly used by Nigerian commentators. It is ironic that in a country with a very large Muslim population there is not a greater awareness of cultural relativism in the classification of taboos.Google Scholar

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5 This was, however, amended to imprisonment for ten years in 1975, following a shift in the perception of the drug-user as a ‘social deviant requiring assistance’. Phillip Emafo, ‘Drug Regulation and Social Policy’, in ibid. p. 73.

6 Particular controversy surrounded the case of one of the executed, as the law was even applied retroactively to a crime that had been committed prior to the promulgation of the 1984 Decree.Google Scholar

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11 Figures are distorted by the frequent uncertainty of the nationality of those arrested. African migrants often adapt their origin to the requirements of residence status. Non-Nigerians will frequently claim Nigerian citizenship in order to be deported to Lagos rather than, say, Monrovia. Equally, Nigerians fearing reprisals at home may demand refugee status as Liberians.Google Scholar

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27 Ladebo, Ladi, Taboo, Nigerian Television Authority, Lagos, and Oyo State Ministry of Information, 1993.Google Scholar

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33 Daily Times (Lagos), 19 05 1994.Google Scholar

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