¹ It is widely assumed that the consumption and cultivation of cannabis was introduced to Nigeria by soldiers returning from India after World War II. See Borrofica, A., ‘Mental Illness and Indian Hemp in Lagos, Nigeria’, in East African Medical Journal (Nairobi), 43, 1966, pp. 377–84.Google Scholar

² This is a definition commonly used by Nigerian commentators. It is ironic that in a country with a very large Muslim population there is not a greater awareness of cultural relativism in the classification of taboos.Google Scholar

³ Chukkol, K. S., ‘Towards a National Drug Control Strategy - a Blueprint’, in Kalu, Awa and Osinbajo, Yemi (eds.), Narcotics: law and policy in Nigeria (Lagos, 1990), pp. 211–23.Google Scholar

⁴ J. A. Iyamabo, ‘Perspectives and Strategies in the Control of the Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances – the Police View Point’, in ibid. pp. 17–37.

⁵ This was, however, amended to imprisonment for ten years in 1975, following a shift in the perception of the drug-user as a ‘social deviant requiring assistance’. Phillip Emafo, ‘Drug Regulation and Social Policy’, in ibid. p. 73.

⁶ Particular controversy surrounded the case of one of the executed, as the law was even applied retroactively to a crime that had been committed prior to the promulgation of the 1984 Decree.Google Scholar

⁷ In the worst instances, a badly managed campaign only creates curiosity ‘among the youth who may want to ascertain by experimentation what the drugs are like’, according to Oyakhilome, Fidelis, ‘Keynote Address’, in Kalu, and Osinbajo, (eds.), op.cit. pp. 1–17.Google Scholar

⁸ The Minister of State for External Affairs, Chief Anthony Ani, warned hajj pilgrims in 1994 of the consequences of peddling hard drugs to Arabia, Saudi, where the death penalty is enforced. West Africa (London), 16–2205 1994, p. 875. At the same time, Nigerians made up the largest number of foreigners among the prison population of Pakistan, while as many as 500 were being held in Nonthaburi, Thailand, according to Prisoners Abroad, London.Google Scholar

⁹ Gillis, John, ‘Narcotics Abuse Prevention: what works?’, in Kalu, and Osinbajo, (eds.), op.cit. pp. 53–63.Google Scholar

¹⁰ This includes trade in commodities such as precious stones, as well as financial instruments, most commonly credit cards, insurance policies, and banknotes, often forged.Google Scholar

¹¹ Figures are distorted by the frequent uncertainty of the nationality of those arrested. African migrants often adapt their origin to the requirements of residence status. Non-Nigerians will frequently claim Nigerian citizenship in order to be deported to Lagos rather than, say, Monrovia. Equally, Nigerians fearing reprisals at home may demand refugee status as Liberians.Google Scholar

¹² An appeal for mercy was made by Prime Minister Major, John in 1992 on behalf of two English women facing the death penalty in Thailand, and by President Bill Clinton in 1994 on behalf of a young American in Singapore awaiting physical punishment for vandalism. Any plea for clemency by an African Head of State would be unlikely to be reported in the West at all.Google Scholar

¹³ Oloruntimehin, O., ‘Sociological and Psychological Implications of Drug Trafficking and Abuse’, in Kalu, and Osinbajo, (eds.), op.cit. pp. 123–39.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Calculations from Zackon, Fred, Heroin: the street narcotic (London, 1988), ch. 2.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Iyambo, loc.cit. p. 11.

¹⁶ Saro-Wiwa, Ken, Basi and Company (Port Harcourt, 1987), p. 75.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Chukkol, loc.cit. p. 217.

¹⁸ According to the ‘Report of the Expert Group on Counter Measures to Drug Smuggling by Sea and Air, 1985’, New York, UN document E/CN.7/1986/11 Add3, paras. 33–4, ‘The fact that capital punishment appeared on the statute books as the maximum penalty did not necessarily deter trafficking… the most effective deterrent was assuredly the certainty of detection and arrest.’Google Scholar

¹⁹ Adetona, Ade, ‘Traditional Healers on Drug Law Enforcement’, in Kalu, and Osinbajo, (eds.), op.cit. pp. 182–7.Google Scholar

²⁰ See Meyer, Birgit, ‘Delivered from the Powers of Darkness’, 10th Satterwaite Colloquium on African Religion and Ritual, Lake District, England, 1994, on the connection between money charms and human sacrifice in Ghana.Google Scholar

²¹ Ihonvbere, Julius, Nigeria: the politics of adjustment and democracy (New Brunswick, 1993), p. 18.Google Scholar

²² Cf. Fieldhouse, D. K., Black Africa, 1945–80: economic decolonization and arrested development (London, 1986).Google Scholar Writing with reference to Tanzania he claims that ‘peasants do not accept any moral claim on the part of the state to control their pattern of life’ (p. 130), a statement that can be largely applied to the ‘urban peasantry’ of Nigeria.Google Scholar

²³ Rates listed by the Bank of America in West Africa, 24–30 September 1990, and 3–9 October 1994.Google Scholar

²⁴ Parkin, David J., Palms, Wine, and Witnesses: public spirit and private gain in an African farming community (London, 1972), ch. 8.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Eades, J. S., Strangers and Traders: Yoruba migrants, markets and the state in Northern Ghana (Edinburgh, 1993), for an account of Nigerian-Ghanaian migration patterns.Google Scholar Also Berry, Sara, Fathers Work for their Sons: accumulation, mobility and class formation in an extended Yoruba community (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1985),Google Scholar and Hill, Polly, Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana: a study in rural capitalism (Cambridge, 1963), for comparative material.Google Scholar

²⁶ Not just in Nigeria, since the treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts is the preserve of the psychiatric profession in most African countries. Asuni, Tolani, ‘Treatment and Rehabilitation of Drug Offenders’, in Kalu, and Osinbajo, (eds.), op.cit. pp. 203–11.Google Scholar

²⁷ Ladebo, Ladi, Taboo, Nigerian Television Authority, Lagos, and Oyo State Ministry of Information, 1993.Google Scholar

²⁸ Uche, C., ‘Drug Use and Abuse at the University: a case study of University of Benin’, in Kalu, and Osinbajo, (eds.), op.cit. pp. 161–9.Google Scholar

²⁹ Calculations from McCoy, Alfred W., The Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the global drug trade (New York, 1991), p. 19,Google Scholar and Smith, Michael, Why People Grow Drugs: narcotics and development in the Third World (London, 1992), p. 10.Google Scholar

³⁰ Oyakhilome, loc.cit. p. 1.

³¹ See Ahire, Philip Terdoo, Imperial Policing: the emergence and role of the police in colonial Nigeria,1860–1960 (Milton Keynes, 1991).Google Scholar Also Hargreaves, Clare, Snowfields: the war on cocaine in the Andes (London, 1992), ch. 1, on the rhetoric and imagery of the ‘drug-warriors’.Google Scholar

³² This is in no way a surprising or novel development. According to Ahire, op.cit. pp. 110–11, the forerunner of the Customs Department, the Preventive Service, already attracted the attention of colonial officers for its selective and opportunistic operation in the 1930s. ‘Illicit’ salt was impounded and sold at public auction, with the accruing profits spent on the maintenance of police farms.Google Scholar

³³ Daily Times (Lagos), 19 05 1994.Google Scholar

³⁴ According to Igbinova, P. E., ‘The Police in Trouble: administrative and organizational problems in the Nigerian police force’, in Indian Journal of Public Administration (New Delhi), 28, 2, 1982, p. 358, the members have ‘internalised the notion that the fact that the agency is called the Nigerian Police Force simply means that they can accomplish their tasks with the use of force’.Google Scholar