THE Federal Government’s push for mandatory pre-employment drug testing of prospective public service applicants marks a vital step in curbing Nigeria’s rampant drug abuse.
A 2019 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime survey revealed 10.6 million Nigerians abusing marijuana, with local cultivation rivalling Afghanistan, the world’s second-largest exporter of marijuana resin.
Nigerian youths also consume cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and local brews.
To stem this tide, the government in December directed all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to make drug testing a core recruitment requirement, a laudable move.
This aligns with the current administration’s resolve to tackle drug and substance abuse head-on, insulating the national workforce from unwholesome practices.
Yet for a crime spanning age, status, and class, one that shreds the socio-economic fabric, workplace productivity, and national security, limiting efforts to new hires falls short.
The testing must extend to all serving public and elected officers, military and paramilitary personnel, traditional institutions, university staff, and students, conducted randomly and consistently for real impact. Drug addicts cannot oversee national or state resources.
Random mandatory testing forms the initiative’s core strength, keeping everyone vigilant and purging doping from the system. Sustained political will is essential to combat a scourge afflicting every societal stratum.
The killing of motorists by trigger-happy, often drunk police officers seeking bribes indicates that the police need random drug testing.
Premium Times reported that a police officer killed a truck driver for refusing to give a N50 bribe at a checkpoint on the Owo-Akure Expressway in 2019. The PUNCH gave a vivid account of how a police officer, Pius Senu, shot a driver, Michael Ishola, dead for refusing to offer a bribe at Awo in Osun State in 2016.
The Transparency International reports: “In 99 per cent of killings from 2013-2019, the officers involved were not charged with a crime.”
The uncouth conduct of some military men and officers places them in this fold.
In 2024, a Brigadier-General, G.S. Mohammed and his escorts physically assaulted an intending couple, Vershima and Mker Iorvihi, in Abuja “for overtaking their vehicle.”
Nigeria has been notorious for drug peddling and abuse over the years, and the rate keeps escalating embarrassingly.
Research published in the African Health Sciences in 2021 says, “18 different drugs were empirically identified as being abused by secondary school students in nine different states in Nigeria.”
Additionally, the UNODC says 14.4 per cent of (14.3 million) people between the ages of 15 and 64 abuse drugs.
A 2022 Journal of International Medical Research indicates that “in Nigeria, a population of 30 to 35 million spends approximately $15,000 and $30,000 annually on psychotropic drugs and alcoholic beverages, respectively.”
In late November 2025, The Indian Express reported the arrest of 50 Nigerians for drug trafficking. Thirty-two of them were deported less than 10 days later.
A 2024 report of the Narcotics Control Bureau of India indicated that 106 Nigerians were among the 660 foreign nationals arrested for drug trafficking and drug-related charges during the year.
According to the report, the arrests made country with the most arrests of Africans is the second-highest overall.
The Chairman of the NDLEA, Buba Marwa, announced in January 2025 that 18,500 arrests were made by the agency, over 3,250 convictions were made, including 10 drug barons, and 2.6mkg drug seizures were recorded in 2024.
Random mandatory testing for all Nigerians, irrespective of age, class and status, will significantly rid the country of bad eggs.
In a society where life sentences for advanced cases have not been effective in checking the drug malaise, complementing it with random testing will widen the apprehension net and act as a deterrent.
The ongoing sensitisation of the public against illicit drug peddling and abuse should be massively increased and expanded to include indigenous languages to reach the local areas for maximum effectiveness.
There is a need for the relevant agencies to collaborate with the NDLEA to strengthen the intelligence plank of this exercise, while the government must also have the political will to make it effective.
Drug peddling and abuse are robbing the country of its human resources and denying it its strength.
Nigeria must kill the illicit drug monster before it kills it.
