WHY SOLVE A PROBLEM WHEN YOU CAN BLAME SOMEONE (On Emzor and Drug Abuse in Nigeria)

Lazy people have a few common traits. Lazy governments too. Both parties pretend that a problem does not exist in the hope that, through some miracle, the challenge would go away. When it doesn’t, they find someone, but themselves, to blame.
That’s the case with substance abuse in Nigeria. Drug abuse has been a major problem in Nigeria for decades. However, as has become true to the character of our country’s rulers, instead of addressing this problem, they bury their heads in the sand in the hope that “God go do am for us”. Now that the beast has risen to its full height, they have grudgingly lifted their heads and are scanning the horizon for someone to blame.
My first real exposure to victims of substance abuse was in 2015, when i gain admission to the university, I had an opportunity to hustle in Rumuokoro axis of Portharcourt,In those months, I became exposed to the menace of drug abuse especially amongst the street urchins. A number of them were hooked on one form of substance or the other. Some sniffed glue, aerosol, or petrol. Most smoked marijuana. Codeine was to come later.
In engagements with some of the addicts who worked as “alabaru” (head-porters), I sought to understand what made them take to drugs. For some, it was about economics. A can of glue, aerosol or petrol was a cheap option for suppressing hunger. The high was simply an additional “benefit”. At least, that’s what they told me. The substances also provided temporary relief from the aches and pains of carrying heavy loads all day long. But not for long. The pain soon returned requiring higher and more frequent doses of the substances. Various symptoms followed: nose bleed, chronic headache, chronic fatigue, lung infections, seizures, heart damage, etc. My exhortation that the drugs would eventually lead to death did not win many converts. "Do I look like I am living?", I was once asked.
Substance abuse in Nigeria does not discriminate along any of the lines that divide us: ethnic, religious, social, gender, geographic, etc. We know people who are addicted but, like the line from that M. Night Shyamalan’s movie (“The Village”), they are like “those we don't speak of." We pretend that we don’t see them. They pretend that we do not see their addiction. The stigma that accompanies addiction was based on old thinking that it resulted from the victim’s moral failings or weakness of will. A 2010 National Institute of Health research has disproved this belief. It is time to start talking about addiction.
The government will not talk about it, despite the fact that some data indicate that about 40 percent of young people in northern Nigeria are addicted to a substance. What should have been nipped in the bud when it was still in its infancy has now developed into a Tsunami. Yet the government has not risen to this responsibility. As has become our nature, instead of a deep search for answers, the government is now scanning for someone – anyone - to blame for its failures.
Sometime in early April 2018, a professor in Bayero University Kano (BUK), at a youth summit in Kano, accused “Igbo drug merchants” of supplying codeine syrup to the North. This analysis was at best, intellectual laziness, and at worst, a terrible form of “ethnic-hate baiting”. Social media was lit in condemnation of his position but what was not apparent was that it should have been a good indication that government’s search for someone to blame was on.
Sometime in late April 2018, a video went viral on social media. It was a BBC Africa Eye documentary that provided a heart-wrenching expose on the drug abuse situation in northern Nigeria. A very distressing video to watch. However, there was something sinister in the documentary. While it was a compelling narrative, it was obvious that the producers made extra effort to situate this decades-old drug abuse problem as if it was one created and sustained by Emzor Pharmaceuticals. In the video, an agent of Emzor Pharmaceuticals sold some bottles of a codeine syrup to undercover investigators. On this count, the film crew decide to position Emzor Pharmaceuticals as the big bad devil.
From the video, one would think that codeine is a substance with no other use but to poison the heads of young people. But codeine is an active ingredient in syrups used to fight coughs and colds. Emzor is one of about half a dozen pharmaceutical companies with over a dozen cough syrups in the market. The documentary producers did not consider it good journalism to mention all of the other companies; rather, they singled out Emzor for immolation in the court of public opinion. It was not difficult for any keen observer to see that this was a really poor hatchet job meant to destroy a company that has been so assiduously built through diligence and hard work by a Nigeria. By a woman in a market dominated by strong men. Over the decades, Emzor went from a small operation to one of Nigeria’s success stories. It is time to pull it down. After all, we are a people who are well-experienced in the science of destruction; rather than construction.
As one who grew up in Nigeria in the 19s, I got a rich diet of James Hadley Chase novels. Fellow Chase addicts will agree that there are no coincidences in life. As the Nigerian adage goes, it is no coincidence that the witch cried at night and the child died in the morning. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the BUK professor blamed “Igbo drug merchants” for the codeine abuse in northern Nigeria and the film producers decided that they have found their “Igbo drug merchant” in Emzor.
I am not a soothsayer - although I sometimes wish I had those powers – but I can predict that the next step in this dance is for the government to move against Emzor and try to shut the company down. This would be irrespective of the fact that Emzor has released a statement stating that the agent on the video was not authorised to have large supplies of the medicine. The company has also suspended the agent and is currently investigating the allegations. It would not matter that Emzor is not even the highest seller of cough syrups in northern Nigeria or in all of Nigeria. When you are caught in the crosshairs of those referred to in John 10:10 as only capable of stealing, killing, and destroying; the best you can do is pray and gird your loins for battle.
I pray I am wrong on this prediction. It will be a shame if I am right. However, in Nigeria, we know that the government does not bother to solve a problem if it is easier to just blame someone else for it. It did not start today. It probably will not end today, for as long as the bureaucracy remains lazy in thought and action.