A ‘hood’ awash with drugs and broken lives – and a warning from ‘Small Doctor’
By Femi Olugbile
Part of the buzz in the social media in the past few weeks has been the announcement that ‘Small Doctor’ has bought himself a Lamborghini. It is sleek and white, with a plush red interior.
29-year-old Lagos boy, Temitope Adekunle has come a long way on his journey since the release of his debut album ‘Omo Iya Teacher’, followed later by his mega-hit song ‘Penalty’. The fairy tale is still ongoing. In the past, he had spats with the police and carried the air of a nouveau riche roughneck. He is suave and stylish nowadays. His nickname is ‘Akeweje Oganla’, which roughly translates as ‘Supreme Leader of the Youth’. He is an Afrobeats superstar with street credibility, as reflected in his massive sold-out concerts at Agege Stadium and other places.
According to his own rags-to-riches narrative, perhaps embellished for added effect, he was, only a few years ago, working as a danfo bus conductor in Lagos, on the well-worn routes that link the parts of town most thickly infested by the sweaty, excitable masses, from Agege to Ikeja and Maryland, and from Mushin to Oshodi-under-bridge.
Born in Ondo State in 1996, he attended Aina Orosun Primary School in Agege, and went to Oniwaya High School. He was admitted to University of Lagos but dropped out early because of his passion for music and his restlessness for fame. According to the same narrative, he rode okada and ran errands at Alaba International Market, mingling with street musicians and getting bits and pieces of studio time. ‘Omo Iya Teacher’ was released in 2015, and from then on, it has been hit after hit.
But this is not a story about Small Doctor or the controversies and achievements of his life. It is not about the abiding dance-hall popularity of ‘Penalty’ which is played all over the world by black, white and brown people, most of whom have no clue what the Yoruba lyrics are about.
‘…Omo iya teacher
Awon girls ti won le,
Won ti gbe water bottle won dani…’
A few days ago, Small Doctor visited his childhood neighbourhood, which may be presumed to be somewhere in Agege.
‘…I strolled through hoods on Sunday and what I saw was heartbreaking. The rate young chaps use drugs nowadays is alarming…’
A report in PM NEWS, a Lagos publication, quotes him further as follows
‘Most heartbreaking was when I arrived in my hood, I saw some promising guys we grew up together sleeping while standing. Some were even making some crazy postures while sleeping. So sad…’
In the same report, he relates how he was advised to set up a ‘Rehabilitation Centre’, since such Centres were ‘the new oil’.
There are several layers to this story.
First is the one about ‘…some promising guys we grew up together…’.
In densely crowded inner cities of Nigeria, where every child grows up into the hustle culture, a few people, like Small Doctor, go on to achieve fame and fortune, in music, in sports, even in academics, while many end up broken and bitter, never be able to escape the mire of the ‘hood’. The sociological reality is akin to what happens in black ghettoes in the USA. Those who ‘escape’, who are not necessarily the ‘brightest’ or the ‘best’, since there is a strong element of ‘luck’ also in the selection for success, escape literally, moving to safer, more affluent neighbourhoods, and only coming back occasionally to gawk at their erstwhile neighbours and classmates, and throw them handouts.
This sociological reality, which needs to be understood and intentionally tackled, is a major underpinning of the ever growing menace of ‘Area Boys’ in Lagos. Migration from other parts of the country, with rapid population growth and an increasing sense of life as a chaotic hustle has almost eliminated any sense of community in many neighbourhoods. Drug abuse and crime are merely pieces in such a mix.
Are ’Rehabilitation Centres’ truly ‘the new Oil?’
Despite the herculean efforts of General Marwa-led NDLEA to staunch supply and drive ‘demand-reduction’, mental health professionals, who must deal with the fallout, are starkly aware ‘the hood is awash’ in Nigeria’s major cities. A psychiatrist confronted with the distraught family of a youth, who after a spell on ‘Canadian Loud’, abandons his university studies and basically does nothing thenceforth, is left to agonise with the hair-splitting technicality of whether he is dealing with ‘amotivational syndrome’ or ‘negative symptom schizophrenia’, and how to patch up a broken life and family. UNODC statistics show there are more than 14 million Nigerians between the ages of 15 and 64 involved in drug misuse. From popular ‘Canadian Loud’ – a strain of highly potent cannabis smuggled in from Canada, often hidden in used cars, to ‘designer’ stimulants and hallucinogens popular among youths, to cocaine and ‘crack’, onto opiates and opioids, the ‘supply’ elimination battle is nowhere near won, yet, and the sad psychosocial reality remains that ‘if a drug is available, people will take it’.
Treatment or ‘Rehabilitation’ facilities, public and private, including high-end ones, are a growing necessity, but no solution suis generis, since there is a predictable revolving-door effect of relapse and readmission if the larger sociological context is not addressed.
Despite ‘Small Doctor’s apparent concern, musicians, in their lyrics and personal lifestyles, are often complicit in glamourising drugs and fostering misuse.
What can Afrobeats superstars do, in they truly want to help?
As powerful influencers and role models, they may join a concerted ‘No Drugs’ public advocacy, in addition to funding positive community-building initiatives such as youth centres to ‘give back’ to their ‘hoods’.
To have Small Doctor or Davido or Wizkid headline a youth Anti-Drug rally organised by NDLEA and collaborating NGOs, for instance, would fill any stadium and send a powerful message that ‘we are all in it together’.
With ‘all hands on deck’, Society, at last, may begin to get a handle on this serious problem.
