AT dusk on Friday, Hassan’s daily efforts as a drug peddler are beginning to pick up for the day, amidst a gang of drug merchants located at their popular spot behind Obalende Bridge in Lagos – the economic capital of Nigeria. Hassan seems determined to attract customers – drug abusers and unsuspecting patrons.

A few moments later, an ardent customer appears before him, looking suspiciously, like a wanted pocket-fingering thief. “Give me white,” he whispers to Hassan, conspicuously exchanging hands. Hassan quickly scissors four pills of the drug and hands them over to him. The customer drops the pills into a half-emptied Pepsi bottle; he waits for a few minutes for the pills to dissolve, still looking around, and then gulps a portion of the mixed drink.

“Dan banza (scoundrel),” Hassan insults the man, in Hausa, as he disappears. Common contraband caplets, counterfeit pills – paraded as potent – narcotic drugs, among others, dominate the stuck of drugs on his trade tray.

The dark, middle-aged man from Borno is a personification of a hustling Nigerian citizen, perspiring to make ends meet in the bustling city of Lagos. Fast-backward a few years of his trading sojourn in Lagos, he has ventured into many kinds of trades before starting to peddle drugs, in the bid to make bountiful gains, albeit illegal.“I was into selling provisions; I was a shoemaker; I was also once a butcher in my village and I did a lot of brisk businesses, before this,” says Hassan.

The drug peddler admits the fact that trading illicit drugs in the heart of Lagos is risky, but he has decided to “stick to this business”, hoping to “earn some money and leave the business to set up another”. Though he is illiterate, Hassan makes his daily bread in a business that requires solid expertise. But to him, learning the art before the act is nothing to worry about, as the most important thing is to earn a meaningful living, while he depends on “what God provides.”

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/toxic-tablets-counterfeit-pills-ii-inside-the-evasive-world-of-mischievous-drug-peddlers/