DRUG ABUSE AND ALL THAT: A CALL FOR A DEEPER LOOK: AN INTRODUCTION

First, let me thank most profoundly Dr. Mrs. Yinka OGUNDE, one of the most committed persons to society and the well-being of our precious children, I know today, for bringing this matter to the fore again and inspiring me to put my pen to this digital paper despite my struggles with my health in the last 5 days.

In our Instructional materials: S.A.F.E™ 4 YOU presented to the public on November 20, 2017, at our Conference to mark the World Children’s Day, we dedicated 5(five) Tips on Drug Abuse and provided profound solutions to the issue, borne out of our many years of field experiences and results…

Permit me to declare upfront that our young people are tempted on all sides by all manner of vices and the list is becoming endless, and they include both popular and unpopular vices. Since we are not in their world, permit me to declare to you sadly that we may never know all the vices they are tempted with no matter how much try and if we will ever know, we will have to dedicate resources to deliberate research.

But one thing we must be clear about is that there is no one vice that is more deadly than the other…All vices that our children are tempted with today either reduces their God-given potentials or destroy same. It is important to note that there is no vice that the young people embrace in isolation. Once a young person is exposed to one vice, he/she finds himself or herself involved in many others.

That is why it is my personal philosophy to address all the vices together and trace then to one source, having worked with young people since 1997 when we start a drug and cult free clubs in secondary schools in Lagos State. The factors which make a young people to succumb to one vice is probably the factor that makes him/her to succumb to all, noting that if he/she can succumb to one, he/she may succumb to all.

It is my well-considered opinion that as many as these vices are, it will amount to chasing shadows to conclude that the vices are the real problem. The vices are not the real problem. I mean they are not the root. They are the fruits. The root and the real problem is the value system we inculcate or omit to inculcate in our precious children and young people. The real problem is our own value system as the handlers of these precious young ones as we can only always give what we have.

This is my argument also about the craze of our young people and the just concluded #BBNaija, where the show, without any positive moral content garnered 170 million votes and yet did not raise concern for many of us, who are genuinely concerned about the socialization of our precious young ones. What we condone or refuses to condone is as a result of our DOMINANT VALUE SYSTM and SOCIAL NORM. Also, what a society rewards, it multiples.

Honestly, I do not think it is going to get better in this ravaging post-truth global culture, where populism is the measurement of what is right and morality has been flung out of the windows of human conducts and interactions.

Another real problem, which is also traceable to our value system, is how we treat our precious young people. We often subject them to sundry forms of abuse. The first impact of abuse is to dehumanise. What is does it mean to dehumanise? ‘Make Somebody Less Human: to make somebody less human by taking away his or her individuality, the creative and interesting aspects of his or her personaility, or his or her compassion and sensitivity towards others’ (Microsoft® Encarta® 2009)

So in most cases, engagement of our precious young people in the vices we are concerned about is traceable to reaction to abuse. It is also important to note that one of the attributes a precious young person needs to confront and repel vices is resilience. Now, it is this resilience that abuses (physical, emotional, sexual and neglect) attack. Never expect a promising and precious young person, whose self-esteem completely depleted and who now lives in the shadow of himself/herself to resist any form of temptation to embrace a vice. In fact such young person goes in search of what vice to embrace since his life has no meaning and compass by the way he/she has been treated or ill-treated.

Thus our solution, which began with the release of our Instructional material is to help our young people and their caregivers to develop moral stamina through the inculcation of what we call the POSITVE VALUE SYSTEM. And what is this POSITVE VALUE SYSTEM? It is simply appealing to our basic sense of what is right or wrong, first according to common sense and second according to obvious moral code of human existence and interactions, with a commitment to always considering the consequences of our actions and omission to self, immediate family, community and the world at large.

The foregoing is the wisdom behind our #SAFE4MEMovement, which slogan is #VALUERevolution, which we are kicking off on May 25 and 26, 2018 to mark this year’s Children’s Day celebration.

Please note that from today, Friday, April 27, 2018, I shall be sharing on here daily all the 5 nuggets shared in the instructional materials mentioned above.

Permit me therefore to begin to share with you the 5 nuggets from tomorrow.

Please young people join me tomorrow and invite your friends.

Thank you…Welcome to a #VALUERevolution.

Do have an INSPIRED day.