Kano State Has Nigeria's Highest Drug Abuse rate —NDLEA

Drug abuse in northern Nigeria's largest city has been on the rise in recent years, with anti-narcotics officials and experts warning of serious social consequences if the problem is not tackled.

 Kano has the country's highest drug abuse rate based on the number of seizures, arrests of addicts and convictions of arrested dealers, according to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

 "It is a painful fact that Kano tops the drug abuse chart in Nigeria, a trend that all hands must be on deck to change if we are to save our upcoming generation from ruin," the Kano commander for the NDLEA, Garba Ahmadu lamented.

 "The use of hard drugs, especially among the youth, has become a real social menace and cuts across all social strata, with children from both rich and poor backgrounds deeply into it."

 On December 6 the NDLEA destroyed more than 10 metric tonnes of drugs, including cannabis, cocaine and methamphetamine, with an estimated street value of some $1.4 million (1.02 million euros).

 The Hisbah, Kano's so-called "morality police" which enforces Islamic law, separately impounded 100,000 cartons of glue during a raid on a city warehouse.

 More unconventional drugs are also being used, not just codeine-laced cough syrup which has become popular among married women, but solvents and powerful horse stimulants.

 Unemployment, broken marriages blamed According to Mairo Bello, who runs a youth charity called the Adolescent Health Information Project, high divorce rates and a resulting breakdown in family values contribute to drug use.

 Hundreds of factories in Kano have closed in the past two decades because of power supply problems and competition from cheaper Asian goods, putting many out of work and leaving them unable to provide for their families.

 Unemployment rates in Kano, which was famous for its textiles and tanneries, are the highest in Nigeria, according to the government. In 2011, the National Bureau of Statistics said as many as two-thirds of the population (67 percent) were out of work.

 Last year, the state governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso launched a programme to target fake and illicit drugs while the manufacture, sale and consumption of codeine-laced cough syrup was banned to curb its abuse.

 "It is no longer drug abuse but substance abuse as drug users now experiment with anything that will get them high,"said Nu'uman Habib, who teaches sociology at Kano's Bayero University.

 The state government has established a sports institute and vocational training centres for young people and set up a drug rehabilitation centre for addicts.

 Children sent to the city by their parents from impoverished villages, who often find themselves on the streets, will be sent back when a ban on begging comes into effect.

 The Hisbah has in addition set up a Matrimonial Dispute Resolution Office to try to reconcile warring families. Mass weddings of divorcees have also been held to help keep children of divorced parents from ending up on the streets and turning to drugs.

 In the past year alone, more than 2,000 women have been married off in this way.

 —Kano, Nigeria. (AFP)