Nigerian youths and adults alike are frying their brains and livers. Thanks to the ease of access to alcohol and hard drugs. While one is legal, the other is illegal and yet medical science has not absolved alcohol of the level of organic destruction it poses to human race.
The first issue that the House of Representatives posed to the new president of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was to declare a state of emergency on drug abuse. Of course, all fingers pointed at the youth as the perpetrators of this social vice. The fact that even adults, and if care is not taken, a vast majority of members of the house of reps, are complicit to the abuse of hard drugs was glossed over. Yet, the fact remains that, indeed, there is a need to call a state of emergency on drug abuse.
ANN investigation has revealed that 7 out of every 10 male and female are victims of drug abuse and addiction in Nigeria. The ratio increases to 9 out of every 10, when you include addiction to junk and sugar, both of which are almost as harmful to the human organs as painkillers, meth, alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana.
When some of these drug addicts were interviewed, the reason they gave for their dependence on these drugs was the trauma the inequalities in the system, orchestrated by the political sphere, cause them.
“Imagine that these house of reps members are paid 9.2 million naira MONTHLY just for sitting down to deliberate on issues. The first 3 months of this year, they sat for just 14 times. That implies that they only sat for less than 5 times in a month. Now, compare that with me. I have to work 9 am to 5 pm every day of the week, save for Sundays; that is 24 days a month and that is 72 days in 3 months, and I am paid 40,000 Naira a month. Can you imagine the insane margin between 9,200,000 and 40,000? And yet, we all visit the same market. Why will I not be traumatized,” Mr Ade, a secondary school teacher submitted to our correspondent. He said he still has to hustle other side jobs to augment his meager salary so he can meet up with his ever increasing bills. This bleak situation of his led him into cigarette smoking and alcohol abuse.
Blessing is a single mother of two kids and she shared how she combines running a beer parlour in the evening and working as a civil servant in the day time. She still cooks and cleans in between these two jobs. She said that the only way she unwinds is to smoke marijuana at night, which also helps her sleep. Not to forget that, even with these two strenuous jobs, she still has to go a-borrowing to pay some of her bills as she does not make up to 120,000 naira monthly from the two jobs.
The above scenarios explain in clear terms why the real state of emergency should be declared on the obscene salary difference between public office holders in Nigeria. If the Tinubu administration is sincere about arresting drug abuse from its roots, then it has to make it a point of duty to declare all public office holders, political and civil alike, as all under minimum wage.
You cannot begin to imagine the amount of money we would save as a nation. The president himself is a man of means and can do without his own basic salary. So, if he places himself on the 30,000 Naira minimum wage, he can still maintain his lifestyle. The same goes for most of those governors, senators and House of Reps members.
Place everyone on minimum wage and see how sanity will return to Nigerian society. See how inflation will disappear. See how electoral violence will die a natural death. See how only the right people with genuine zeal to serve the people would vie for political positions and how crime will reduce to the barest minimum. Place everyone on minimum wage, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and you will see drug abuse checkmated. You will get all the money you need to build all the refineries you want, clean up the environment, stabilize electricity and reticulate water to every household in Nigeria. Do this and prove those who say you will not save Nigeria wrong.
