We are pleased to announce that Oluwafimidara Oyadeyi of Graceland Heights, Ibadan, Oyo State, has been selected by an independent panel of judges as the 4th position of the Drug Addiction Essay Competition for Nigerian Secondary Schools. 

 

The epidemic of drug addiction in Nigeria has recently come to light. Those who are most vulnerable include young people. Therefore, to get them to think critically about the problems of drug use and abuse and partake in developing solutions to the problem we launched the Drug Addiction Essay Competition in November 2018.  

 

Read Oluwafimidara Oyadeyi's essay to find out more about the entry. 

 

 

Drug addiction or abuse is the use of drugs or substances in a way that is unhealthy to the user and to others. In the third week of November 2018 alone, the Nigerian Customs seized about 53 containers of Tramadol while several cartons of codeine were also destroyed. My school and place of residence are in Lagelu local government area, Ibadan, Oyo State. According to the local investigation, drug abuse is widespread among secondary school students within our community. On our way to school, we often see the young and old either drinking alcohol or smoking especially around markets and motor parks. This is dangerous to the community.

 

The dangers of drug abuse can be divided into two: dangers to the individual and dangers to society. The dangers to the individual include kidney problems, liver failure, mental illness, poverty, school drop-out, and communicable diseases. The dangers to society include violence, chaos, crimes, crime-related deaths and terrorism. This is why it is crucial for us to find a solution to the problem of drug abuse.

 

The problem of drug abuse has many causes which include peer pressure, dysfunctional families, illiteracy, financial pressures and economic factors. It takes a long time before someone becomes an addict. Therefore the solution to drug abuse, especially among the youth, has to be two-fold: prevention and rehabilitation. Prevention is a solution that prevents the young person who has never abused drugs from using it while rehabilitation helps those who have already started drug abuse. However both prevention and rehabilitation will not succeed if we are unable to reach the affected persons.

 

The local government where I reside has about 132 towns with several private and public schools. It is therefore challenging and expensive to reach each person. So what is the way forward? The way forward I believe is to use technology. The most common thing almost everybody, especially the youth, has is a mobile phone, tablet, computer or any other device. What if we put prevention and rehabilitation on these devices? I propose that we develop a simple interactive application that can run on mobile devices and computers, this application will have education and information that will help prevent new drug abusers, and rehabilitate old abusers. In addition, this application will be given to schools where teachers can use them to help their students. This is the first part of the solution. The other solution is to start a mobile library with a tricycle that will have educative books and pamphlets on the dangers of drug abuse and addiction.

 

An outreach award ceremony was organised to celebrate Oluwafimidara Oyadeyi at Graceland Heights in Ibadan Oyo State. 

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