Substance Abuse and Leadership Crisis in a Nigeria University

Substance Abuse has negative effect on the administration of a university in Nigeria. University of Abuja has been badly hit by this phenomenon in the past half a decade. Any time you observe that a leader takes irrational decisions such as closing down shops within the university without considering the fact that some families livelihoods are dependent on the shops closed down, then that may be a clear signal of substance abuse. Any leader who tries to change the name of a university enacted by law without a proposal to the Legislate arm of the government which has been in existence for over three decades, then such a leader is a suspect in a substance abuse. Such a person is always looking for a shortcut to achieve writing his name using an indelible ink. Please, can someone explain to me the meaning of UofA of Nigeria? Before now, University of Abuja has had five (5) substantive Vice Chancellors excluding those in the Acting capacities and I can’t remember any of those Vice Chancellors making any attempt at changing the name of this university.

Any time you come across someone who is above age sixty (60) years and still pretending to be exhibiting youthful exuberance, then you do not need any soothsayer to let you know that such person is a prime suspect in substance abuse. One of the common characteristics of substance abuser is talkativeness. If you suspect someone to be abusing any substance, but you are not sure, carry out a simple experiment by moderating a programme to last for say 2 hours. Allocate to the suspect ten minutes to introduce the topic of discussion. If at the end of ten minutes, such a person willingly handed over the microphone to you, then carry out further investigation on the suspect. However, if as the programme moderator, you struggled to collect the microphone from such a person after about 1hour, 59 minutes leaving the audience with just a minute, further investigation may not be necessary to confirm such a person an abuser of a substance. In any case, such a person do not believe that any person within the audience would make any meaningful contributions as he had already taken decision with assistance of the substance under abuse. If after all these, you are still in doubt, please let me know so that I will invite Marwa Boys from NDLEA to clear your doubts.

If you have ever encountered any substance abuser in your life, do not blame such a person, but rather blame his or her upbringing. On the other hand, you can as well blame the substance been abused for it is such a substance that controls all the activities of the abuser. In case you don’t know, a substance abuser wears a masquerade that dances ethnic and religious music only.

If you come across an administrator in any university who assumes the roles of the Bursar, the Registrar, Heads of Departments, Deans of Faculties, Directors and Provosts, establishes Centers just for the sake of such centres, and then starts a new semester 3 – 4 weeks before the end of the previous semester, that is a good pointer to an abuse of substance.

In 2001 in this university, the population of 400 level students in Computer Science were just twelve (12). Because of their number, all of us lecturers in the department knew almost all the students by their names. In one of my private interactions with one of them, he confessed to me that they are three (3) members of his class who read together and also that they combine resources together to import brain enhancing drugs from United States of America to enable them read. As at then, that never made sense to me as I was just imagining how little gays of that age could be using brain enhancing drugs to read. I regret not counselling them against the dangers of drug abuse. If any of those gays assume any leadership position where ever they may be, staff under them may likely be experiencing what we in University of Abuja have been experiencing for the past half a decade.

Some years after that, I was to drop some secondary school students in their hostel and they demanded for brain enhancing drug. I asked them what that was and they told me that brain enhancing drugs are what their colleagues in the college use to read. I took my time to counsel them about the danger of such drugs in the later stage of their lives. It was at that point that I remembered those my 2001 students and blamed myself for allowing them to continue their lives dependent on drugs.

I once suggested drug and mental stability tests as one of the criteria for appointing a Vice Chancellor in this our great university so as not have a repeat of the past half a decade of not following the rules and regulations in the governance structure of this university, but that did not go well with some people for whatever reason(s).

There is need for an internal candidate since to some extent, we all know ourselves. I do not think that substance abuse is something that just starts because one is appointed a Vice Chancellor. It is something that would have started even while in the primary, secondary or even university days when some people are not confident of themselves, but needs a substance to make them appear higher and larger than they really are.

One day, in my inquisitive nature to find out why people abuse substance, I went to National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and interacted with some officers of the agency. I was amazed in some of the substance that some people abuse. In fact, I was made to understand that some abusers place their noses to sniff soakaway to make them high in the spirit.

As a university community, let us think of a way to help out anyone who is deeply dependent on substance even if such a person would soon finish his/her tenue because we cannot all pretend not to know that a substance is been abused.

As a community of caring people, let those in Guidance and Counseling unit put their heads together to help out so that this substance abuse by someone may not be carried to any other place after this university. It is not late until it is over. As you do that, you are not only helping such an individual, but the entire nation.

By
Professor Okike Benjamin
Department of Computer Science, University of Abuja, Nigeria

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