Migrants, Domestic Politics, and the Campaign against Drug Abuse in Kano State, Northern Nigeria, 1999–2016

Abstract

This article examines how a state campaign against an unprecedented rise in drug and substance abuse became enmeshed in domestic politics characterized by interethnic rivalry due to the monopolization of patent medicine enterprises by migrants in Kano, the most populous state of Nigeria. In 2013, Kano ranked first in the hierarchy of drug and substance abuse because of poorly regulated patent medicine enterprises aggravated by the unscrupulous practices of some entrepreneurs. Using extant sources, this article explores and analyzes the degree of influence that domestic politics exercised in the campaign against drug and substance abuse in Kano from 1999 to 2016. The Kano state government-led campaign against new dimensions of drug and substance abuse worked through the exercise of effective control over patent medicine enterprises in Sabon Gari. This campaign was frustrated by politics, resistance, and litigation in ways that allowed the problem to persist.