Monrovia – Several drug users across Monrovia and its environs have called on the government of President George Weah to prioritize their rehabilitation instead of making promises of foreign scholarships and job opportunities.
Report by Alpha Daffae Senkpeni, [email protected]
Their suggestions come less than a week following a visit by the Chairman of the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change to a ghetto in Monrovia, where he made lofty promises to drug users.
Mulbah Morlu promised to allot scholarships to two drug users with a college degree, saying, “They will go out of the country for foreign studies.”
The CDC Chairman cited the Chinese government as the source of the scholarships for short-term training in China. He also promised that 10 persons will be awarded computer training opportunities.
But FrontPage Africa has gathered from several substance abusers in Monrovia that while they welcome the promises by the ruling party, they would prefer a thorough rehabilitation program to help make them useful citizens once more.
“Camp us and then put us under intensive medical care because we have been addicted to the drug substance,” says Tamba Deemah, 40, who appears influential amongst more than a hundred users that are based along the Tubman Boulevard.
“Even if the government gives us the scholarship – take us from here and carry us America or China – as long as we are addicted to the substance, when we go America we will be running behind it there.”
“Right now the government really has to focus on us and rehabilitate us then every one of us can pick up a discipline – if you want to learn a trade you can do it, if you want to go to college then you can go.”
These users, locally dubbed ‘Zogos’, are entrapped in acute drug addiction. Many are abandoned by their families, leaving them to fetch for themselves by doing odd jobs or committing petit crimes.
According to the Liberia National Police, there are an estimated 4,500 drug users in Monrovia and its environs.
But a September 2016 report by the Drug Enforcement Agency showed that there were over 77,000 drug addicts in the country.
However, some, before becoming addictive, acquired basic secondary or college education. But are now derelicts – menacing the sanity of the cities of over a million people.
Prince Thompson, 35, is a staunch supporter of the CDC. He still has his hope clinging to the new government.
“I voted for our President because I know he will help us leave the street,” says the 2009 graduate of the World Wide Mission School in central Monrovia. He’s been a user for more than five years and is now entangled with the addiction.
“Some of us are willing to change but we really need help, so if the government is willing to take us from here to the rehab I will be willing to change,” he said.
“What we are doing is easy to start but to just get from inside is not easy, so we need somebody who will help us get from this addiction.”
Thirty-three-year-old Jackson Fayiah is a 2013 graduate of the St. Augustine Episcopal School in Kakata Margibi County. While being a user for more than five years, Jackson has also been a massive fan of President Weah.
Now, He has doubts about the President’s promises to them while on the campaign trail.
“Since he promised us we are not seeing anything going on, so I have little hope that they will come back and help us leave these streets,” he says.
Jackson claims recent promises by the Chairman of the ruling party are mere political rhetoric that would have no impact on the hundreds of drug users across the country.
Unlike Jackson, Deemah, who is a 2000 graduate of the G.W Gibson High School, is not giving up on the government. He’s confident that someday the former soccer-star-turned-politician would look their way.
“We know one day he will focus his attention on us because we the street people were the ones that mostly voted him and then he succeeded and has state power in his hands now. So we are praying that God will touch his heart so that he can help get us off the streets,” he said.
Reuben Bobby Logan is the Executive Director of the Association of Progressive Youth of Liberia (APYL). He has been working to provide a second chance for several of these drug users across Monrovia and Paynesville cities.
“It’s quite unfortunate that all the hope they were given by the current administration is going away. They need to get into rehab treated and be reintegrated,” Logan told FPA.
Logan said it is “so frustrating and disheartening not to see them captured in the 2018/2019 budget,” which he adds “leaves a massive gap-hole in the government’s war against drug and would adversely affect the pro-poor agenda”.
Many of these users are 100 percent willing to be rehabilitated, the APYL Executive Director said.
President Weah along with his Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor became pretty famous with hundreds of drug users during their first couple days in office after the inauguration.
Howard –Taylor was celebrating her 55th birthday and opted to hold a mass feeding event for many of them, bringing them together with the new government officials so that they would feel a part of society.
“I know this is the first time anyone has ever thought about this. People are afraid to come around you because of many reasons, but I see hope in you,” the Vice President said.
“You all have a great future and a glorious destiny. This is not an area anyone chooses to go. I thought it was time we brought back some sense of love and togetherness in your community.”
It’s more than four months since the merry-making event was held for these users, but a comprehensive program to rehabilitate them seems farfetched.
In the words of CDC’s Morlu, as captured in a video clip when he recently visited the ghetto to “appreciate” the users, he assured, “We want you to know that the president you elected will not forget you. He, himself has put in programs that will look after you…, your vote was not cast in vain.”
According to international standard, rehabilitating and reintegrating the number of drug users across the country would require about US$36 million.
This means spending about US$10,000 on a person, which would cover treatment, accommodation, feeding, skill-training and a reintegration package.
And Logan suggests that the government may generate benefits from investing in the rehab project by launching agriculture projects.
“Government will not just spend the money on them and later release them, they are also going to pay that money back,” he suggested.
“So, if we add agriculture program to our project so that they will grow cassava and corn this will raise some money for the government before they are released.”