Editorial: A strong case for mandatory drug integrity test for politicians

 

The recent recommendation by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, that the major political parties should set in motion the process of subjecting their aspirants for public offices at the federal and state levels to drug integrity test before the forthcoming primaries though may sound unpopular and unconventional among the elite, is a welcome, patriotic and novel step which if strictly enforced, can restore sanity to  Nigeria’s current polluted political space.

 

We totally support the proposal on merit since it has the potential to substantially reduce the number of prospective public office holders with questionable pedigree and medically-unfit that would try to manipulate their way into sensitive positions of authority, engender bad governance and further compound the current socio-economic challenges experienced by citizens through bad governance.

 

As a further step, the National Working Committees, NWC, should as a matter of national emergency introduce a mandatory comprehensive medical checkups for the aspirants to ascertain both their physical and mental fitness for the delicate and challenging responsibility of piloting the affairs of state as well as meeting the yearnings and aspirations of the people if given the mandate.

 

Since ‘a stitch in time saves nine’, such a preemptive move has the advantage of conserving the huge public resources usually expended on medical tourism abroad by sick and feeble elected leaders who would ordinarily not disclose their medical history to the electorate all in desperate lust for power unlike what obtains in advanced democratic climes. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Nigerians spent a whopping $11.01billion on health-related services abroad over the last 10years.

 

Apparently, the Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd), stunned some politicians recently when he implored political parties to make compulsory drug integrity test part of the screening requirements for aspirants seeking to contest political offices in the 2023 general elections on their platforms.

 

Revealing that the proposal is not entirely new and already being implemented by some states including Kano for years, he maintained that other government appointees should equally take the mandatory test. “And, I have just sent a letter this morning to the National Chairman of All Progressives Congress, APC, who will be the first of the National Working Committee, NWC , I wish to pay an advocacy visit on this issue. I recommended that drug tests be incorporated in the screening process for all those interested in running for public office; we’ll do the same to the PDP and other important parties. We need to be certain if he’s a person that is already a drug addict/user who will spend all the money he’s given for public service to consume cocaine and his head will not be in a stable condition to handle the affairs he has been entrusted with”.

 

But not unexpectedly, the proposal has triggered mixed reactions with some politicians and pessimists dismissing it as unconstitutional, undemocratic and cautioning Marwa to restrict the agency to its original core mandate which include a sustained fight against drug abuse and trafficking in illicit substances across the country.

 

While denouncing the request for the drug integrity test on aspirants vying for political offices for instance, the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, without considering the merits, described it as “a mockery of the constitutional rule and a joke taken too far, ill-conceived and mockery of our frail democracy.

It is inconsistent with electoral laws and suggests that politicians are drug addicts who cannot be trusted to hold elective offices. NNPP strongly condemns it and will not tolerate it. Any proposal outside the clear provisions of the 1999 Constitution, Electoral Act, INEC guidelines and our party Constitution is void and of no effect whatsoever.”

 

Also attacking the recommendation, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) through its National Chairman, Yabagi Sani, threw caution to the winds, labeling it as “outrageous, outlandish, preposterous, despicable and deliberate attack” on the sensibilities of lovers of democratic governance in Nigeria”, adding that “The awkward proposal portrays politicians as drug addicts who must be certified fit to run for various elective offices by the agency. It is reprehensible and unacceptable”.

 

Continuing his venom, Sani demanded an apology from the NDLEA, advising the anti-narcotic agency to desist from impugning on the character and integrity of politicians, including those contesting for president who are patriotic, highl-respected. “It is high time we began to show regard for the nation’s political leaders as obtainable in other democracies. It is obvious that political parties’ activities are guided by the 1999 Constitution as amended, the Electoral Act 2022, INEC guidelines/regulations and respective parties’ guidelines. There is no justification whatsoever for extra constitutional requirements as proposed by the NDLEA” .

 

We consider these arguments by the NNPP and IPAC and the attempt to denigrate the leadership of the Agency as not only myopic, unacceptable, unfortunate and unwarranted but completely out of tune with the current ethical and moral decadence ravaging the country as well as the empirical evidence of increasing cases of drug use and drug abuse which some medical experts have linked directly to worsening security challenges, violent crimes, the craze for wealth and unbridled looting of public treasury.

 

According to the latest statistics in the 2018 National Drug Use Survey, a joint research by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA) with technical support from the UNODC launched in 2019, about 14.3 million Nigerians aged between 15 and 64 years engaged in drug use out of which about three million were drug-dependent and suffering from substance-induced disorders which poses serious public health and security challenges.

 

Regrettably also, the report further hinted “that the country will have to grapple with approximately 20 million drug users by 2030, further deepening the public health and public security challenge,” if necessary measures were not initiated to discourage rising usage of cocaine, heroin, cannabis, opioids, trammadol, cough syrups, tranquilisers and sedatives, solvents and inhalers, among others.

 

We recall vividly too that prior to the NDLEA’s suggestion, several medical experts had argued that since drugs breed crimes, the surge in criminality across the nooks and crannies of the country couldn’t be dissociated from the increasing drug use among Nigerians, stressing  that such violent crimes as terrorism, banditry, cultism and kidnapping rocking the country are direct fallouts of the abuse of substances by individuals.

 

In fact, a psychiatrist noted rather sadly that, “Even the craze for wealth among the politicians and civil servants might not be unconnected with drug use. This is because once you are on drugs, you have an exaggerated view of yourself and you lose your feelings with a tendency to hurt without remorse.

When you loot public wealth blindly, it shows you no longer have a feeling that you are hurting others because the wealth you are accumulating illegally should be for the good of others.”

 

There is nothing wrong, he argued, with the call not only for drug integrity test but thorough medical examination of Nigerian politicians and those he described as kleptomaniac civil servants, to check whether they are drug users or not.

Therefore, the poser before NNPP and IPAC is: Isn’t it in the national interest, fair, just and imperative for political parties to conduct a rigorous  mental and physical checks on politicians aspiring into public offices where they will superintendent over our commonwealth with a view to separate the wheat from the chaff?

 

We believe strongly that the answer is in affirmative considering the massive looting of the nation’s resources that had been perpetrated at all levels of government and largely responsible for the current state of underdevelopment and near collapse of public infrastructures since the return to civilian rule on May 29, 1999. It is particularly regrettable that after almost 62 years of independence from Britain, Nigeria can’t provide such basic necessities of life as potable water, decent housing and stable electricity for her citizens.

 

Truly, it is criminal, abnormal , insensitive and unpatriotic as experience has shown, for public office holders and even some top civil servants  to steal billions of Naira meant for social, economic and infrastructural development in communities, towns and cities to the detriment of the taxpayers they are supposed to serve diligently and honestly. It is a truism that most of them have completely abandoned the welfare and security of citizens which is the primary purpose of government in pursuit of ill-gotten wealth.

 

The NNPP and IPAC by their common stand, therefore, are indirectly suggesting that there is no nexus between increasing propensity for wealth and looting of funds by public office holders, reported daily killings of defenceless Nigerians and other violent crimes. This is far from the truth. We vehemently disagree with such notion and throw our full weight not only behind the innovative proposal by the NDLEA but the wise counsel of an expert that a comprehensive medical examination be conducted on all intending public office holders at both the federal, state and local government levels as part of measures to drastically reduce continued pillage of Nigeria’s financial resources by some powerful and unscrupulous individuals.