DRUG ABUSE THREATENS THE GENERATION OF NORTHERN WOMEN
Northern Women and Drug Abuse
While drug abuse, especially cannabis, has been a long time problem among male youths in the North, codeine cough syrup is the emerging cancer ravaging women and girls in the North from Kaduna to Borno and Yobe to Nasarawa. Codeine syrup has become the favourite drug of abuse by all classes of girls and women in the north, but most especially the daughters and wives of the wealthy.
The smallest bottle of codeine syrup costs up to N600, while some cost as high as N1,000. Some of the girls admit they could take up to eight bottles in a day.
Since many of the girls and women, including housewives, are neither career nor business women, the habit is sustained by a legion of “boyfriends” who buy for them.
Shuaibu Maituraki, an ex-drug user who now runs an NGO devoted to rehabilitating drug addicts in Kano, is worried that many young girls and even married women are wasting their lives doing drugs. He said married women who do not keep boyfriends use their housekeeping money to buy codeine and that addiction has also led many of the women into debts or vices and crimes such as stealing of jewelleries at social functions.
Maituraki, whose father is also a wealthy Kano businessman, said he established the Youth Awareness Forum On Drug Abuse, YAFODA, to save Kano youths from destruction from drug addiction
Addiction to codeine syrup is turning the otherwise conservative girls and women of the North into social miscreants and rebellious housewives. It is increasingly becoming common to see Northern girls and women at night clubs and social spots where they have freedom to drink codeine, take their tablets and smoke cigarette, and return home wearing hijab.
More women now are believed to keep late nights since they cannot indulge in addiction freely at home.
It is common in Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yola and some other cities in the North, to see women check into hotels or guest houses during the day to indulge themselves before going back home at night. It is at these relaxation spots that many of the women rendezvous with boyfriends or men friends or just fellow girls and women.
Our reporter visited one of the notable guesthouses in Sabon Gari, Kano, where some of these girls usually lodge for observation. It was around 2.00pm on a Saturday.
Within an hour, more than 10 girls dressed in hijab had checked in. Some were driven to the place in taxis while some drove themselves. There were a few who came on commercial motorbikes.
The manager of the guesthouse revealed to this website that it was the daily routine for them, adding that the girls could stay up till midnight before leaving.
More women and girls are also getting involved in petty stealing at wedding parties and during social visits when in need of cash for more drugs. Guest and celebrants in the north are now getting more protective of their valuables, especially jewelleries during social occasions. Mohammed Idris, State Commander of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, in Sokoto recounted a recent story of what happened at a wedding party in Sokoto.
“A gold necklace was missing at a wedding ceremony here in Sokoto and the owner closed the road and said every woman at the event would undergo a search. The women were asked to empty their handbags. Although they didn’t find the jewellery, what they found was alarming. Over 70 per cent of the women had one or two bottles of cough syrup in their bags. Even the bride had a carton under her bed.”
Kazeem Abdullahi, an Imam employed by the Kano Emirate Council, told icirnigeria.org that many marriages are breaking up in the city due to drug related issues. He revealed that not less than 100 cases of marital conflicts are brought to the palace of the Emir of Kano for resolution daily, stressing that the situation had become critical.
Wife of Nigeria’s President, Aisha Buhari, raised an alarm early this year when she visited Kano State. She said Northern youths, including women, were wasting their lives with drug abuse. She urged political and religious leaders in the region to urgently find solution to the menace.
Maituraki told our reporter that he has counselled many girls and housewives who have become addicted to codeine because of marital problems or influence of friends.
“Some of them told us that they became addicted to codeine when their husbands took other wives, for some it’s because they have been divorced while some women believe it will make them attractive by giving them big eyeballs,” Maituraki stated.
But many parents are either truly unaware of the menace or are living in denial. Dahiru Musdapha, Secretary, Adamawa Emirate Council, said that he had never heard about the problem of drug among women in the state.
“I don’t know anything about this, I’ve never heard about this type of thing before,” he told the reporter.
But his denial is in sharp contrast to what other officials of the palace, and the state NDLEA Commander, Yakubu Kibo, told our reporter.
The latter said records of the command indicate that more women are now involved in use of dangerous drugs, specifically codeine syrup. Officials of the Kano Emirate who also spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed this too.
“This drug issue is a very serious problem now,” one of them said. “We hear a lot of cases about girls and young women, even married women, taking this thing.”
Drug abuse, according to medical practitioners, occurs when a person can no longer function normally without taking the drug. According to Taiwo Sheik, a psychiatrist and chief executive of the Federal Neuro-psychiatrist Hospital, Kaduna, anyone suffering from drug abuse is no longer a normal person and is referred to as “suffering from significant loss of function” which manifests in the person’s behaviour.
“He has taken the substance to a degree to which he is not able to function well. In medical language we say there is significant impairment-the individual is impaired. So its now a sickness. That is what we mean by abuse,” he explained.
And if the statistics reeled out by Sheik is any indication, many women and girls in the North are very sick. He said unlike 10 years ago when drug abuse and addiction was a male problem, more women and girls are becoming prone to drug and substance abuse.
He said the major drug abused by Northern girls and women is codeine cough syrup, which they take in quantities that would make them tipsy and almost impervious to pain – just as narcotics do.
“Ten years ago, for every four or five men, we see one woman. But today, for every four or five men we see four women. That shows a trend that suggests increase in the number of women that come with substance abuse problems. Especially now that the type of substance people abuse is also changing. Twenty years ago, we don’t talk about things that people buy from the chemist and take home. Today, that is what we’re struggling with, cough mixtures. And that is the one that women abuse most.”
While drug abuse, especially cannabis, has been a long time problem among male youths in the North, codeine cough syrup is the emerging cancer ravaging women and girls in the North from Kaduna to Borno and Yobe to Nasarawa. Codeine syrup has become the favourite drug of abuse by all classes of girls and women in the north, but most especially the daughters and wives of the wealthy.
The smallest bottle of codeine syrup costs up to N600, while some cost as high as N1,000. Some of the girls admit they could take up to eight bottles in a day.
Since many of the girls and women, including housewives, are neither career nor business women, the habit is sustained by a legion of “boyfriends” who buy for them.
Shuaibu Maituraki, an ex-drug user who now runs an NGO devoted to rehabilitating drug addicts in Kano, is worried that many young girls and even married women are wasting their lives doing drugs. He said married women who do not keep boyfriends use their housekeeping money to buy codeine and that addiction has also led many of the women into debts or vices and crimes such as stealing of jewelleries at social functions.
Maituraki, whose father is also a wealthy Kano businessman, said he established the Youth Awareness Forum On Drug Abuse, YAFODA, to save Kano youths from destruction from drug addiction
Addiction to codeine syrup is turning the otherwise conservative girls and women of the North into social miscreants and rebellious housewives. It is increasingly becoming common to see Northern girls and women at night clubs and social spots where they have freedom to drink codeine, take their tablets and smoke cigarette, and return home wearing hijab.
More women now are believed to keep late nights since they cannot indulge in addiction freely at home.
It is common in Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yola and some other cities in the North, to see women check into hotels or guest houses during the day to indulge themselves before going back home at night. It is at these relaxation spots that many of the women rendezvous with boyfriends or men friends or just fellow girls and women.
Our reporter visited one of the notable guesthouses in Sabon Gari, Kano, where some of these girls usually lodge for observation. It was around 2.00pm on a Saturday.
Within an hour, more than 10 girls dressed in hijab had checked in. Some were driven to the place in taxis while some drove themselves. There were a few who came on commercial motorbikes.
The manager of the guesthouse revealed to this website that it was the daily routine for them, adding that the girls could stay up till midnight before leaving.
More women and girls are also getting involved in petty stealing at wedding parties and during social visits when in need of cash for more drugs. Guest and celebrants in the north are now getting more protective of their valuables, especially jewelleries during social occasions. Mohammed Idris, State Commander of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, in Sokoto recounted a recent story of what happened at a wedding party in Sokoto.
“A gold necklace was missing at a wedding ceremony here in Sokoto and the owner closed the road and said every woman at the event would undergo a search. The women were asked to empty their handbags. Although they didn’t find the jewellery, what they found was alarming. Over 70 per cent of the women had one or two bottles of cough syrup in their bags. Even the bride had a carton under her bed.”
Kazeem Abdullahi, an Imam employed by the Kano Emirate Council, told icirnigeria.org that many marriages are breaking up in the city due to drug related issues. He revealed that not less than 100 cases of marital conflicts are brought to the palace of the Emir of Kano for resolution daily, stressing that the situation had become critical.
Wife of Nigeria’s President, Aisha Buhari, raised an alarm early this year when she visited Kano State. She said Northern youths, including women, were wasting their lives with drug abuse. She urged political and religious leaders in the region to urgently find solution to the menace.
Maituraki told our reporter that he has counselled many girls and housewives who have become addicted to codeine because of marital problems or influence of friends.
“Some of them told us that they became addicted to codeine when their husbands took other wives, for some it’s because they have been divorced while some women believe it will make them attractive by giving them big eyeballs,” Maituraki stated.
But many parents are either truly unaware of the menace or are living in denial. Dahiru Musdapha, Secretary, Adamawa Emirate Council, said that he had never heard about the problem of drug among women in the state.
“I don’t know anything about this, I’ve never heard about this type of thing before,” he told the reporter.
But his denial is in sharp contrast to what other officials of the palace, and the state NDLEA Commander, Yakubu Kibo, told our reporter.
The latter said records of the command indicate that more women are now involved in use of dangerous drugs, specifically codeine syrup. Officials of the Kano Emirate who also spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed this too.
“This drug issue is a very serious problem now,” one of them said. “We hear a lot of cases about girls and young women, even married women, taking this thing.”
Drug abuse, according to medical practitioners, occurs when a person can no longer function normally without taking the drug. According to Taiwo Sheik, a psychiatrist and chief executive of the Federal Neuro-psychiatrist Hospital, Kaduna, anyone suffering from drug abuse is no longer a normal person and is referred to as “suffering from significant loss of function” which manifests in the person’s behaviour.
“He has taken the substance to a degree to which he is not able to function well. In medical language we say there is significant impairment-the individual is impaired. So its now a sickness. That is what we mean by abuse,” he explained.
And if the statistics reeled out by Sheik is any indication, many women and girls in the North are very sick. He said unlike 10 years ago when drug abuse and addiction was a male problem, more women and girls are becoming prone to drug and substance abuse.
He said the major drug abused by Northern girls and women is codeine cough syrup, which they take in quantities that would make them tipsy and almost impervious to pain – just as narcotics do.
“Ten years ago, for every four or five men, we see one woman. But today, for every four or five men we see four women. That shows a trend that suggests increase in the number of women that come with substance abuse problems. Especially now that the type of substance people abuse is also changing. Twenty years ago, we don’t talk about things that people buy from the chemist and take home. Today, that is what we’re struggling with, cough mixtures. And that is the one that women abuse most.”
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