The scare that Tramadol and Codeine addiction gave to parents in the last two years is nothing compared to the new rave in addiction. No, it is not drugs.
It is gambling!
I am not talking of the gambling in the casinos in big hotels. Most of those gamblers ‘don belle full’.
I am talking about Sports Betting. And there seems to be no control.
The governments are supporting it. The media is propagating it. Even parents unwittingly support their children. Top sports personalities are being used to promote it in the media.
The popular name of the addiction is Baba Ijebu among some Nigerians.
In the 60s, 70s and 80s, we had pools betting where people were taught to ‘perm 3 from 4’ and ‘fixed odds’. Some Nigerians made their fortune from the misfortune of the lowly paid who were attracted to try and increase their meagre resources by speculating on who will win a football match between teams in faraway Scotland called Partick Thistle and Aberdeen where they have never been to and whom they have never watched play.
The wave of this current addiction is fuelled by governments who have set up betting regulating agencies which are mostly just collecting fees and regulating nothing. Many companies with names promoting bet this and bet that go smiling to the banks not just on weekends as it was those days, but daily. Radio, TV and newspapers as well as online media make money from advertising the habit and how the patrons can become rich overnight. Many parents rejoice with their children when they hit it on Baba Ijebu.
At every corner shop and at football match viewing centres, our youths gather to try their luck. This betting is tied to mostly foreign football league’s like the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga and French Ligue 1. Of course the Germans, Italian and other leagues are there. Even Basketball is not left out.
When the gamblers lose and they see someone else who has won or who the betting company has put up and promoted as a winner, the urge is to play and play again until they win or are broke. The latter is usually the case. And when that happens, the youths have to look for the money to sustain the addiction. Some borrow. Some steal. Some kill. Some sell their parents TV, jewellery and even houses to play more.
The ease with which youths can engage in sports betting is one major headache to first tackle. Not everyone of them need to go to the corner shop. Anyone with a phone can gamble these days. Technology that is supposed to help us is leading us to destruction.
The major problem is that no one seems to admit yet that Baba Ijebu is a huge problem which we need to find an urgent solution to. Not the government. Not the parents. Not the whole society, it seems.
So how do we get a cure? Can the drug addiction fight introduced by the government succeed in gambling addiction?
In 2017, researchers in Finland started testing a cure capable of curing gambling. The Finnish researchers said they wanted to see if gambling addiction can be treated with a fast-working nasal spray.
The spray contains naloxone, an emergency treatment for opiate overdoses (heroin, opium, morphine) that blocks the production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to pleasure with a central role in addictions.
“The spray goes to the brain in a few minutes so it’s very useful for a gambler… if you crave gambling, just take the spray,” Hannu Alho, professor of addiction medicine at Helsinki-based National Institute for Health and Welfare, told AFP.
Alho said a previous attempt to beat gambling addiction with a pill containing a substance similar to naloxone had benefits, but wasn’t efficient enough as the pill takes at least one hour before it is absorbed.
“Gambling is a very impulsive behaviour…the need to gamble starts right away,” Alho said.
“For this reason we are seeking a medication with faster effect…the nasal spray acts in just a few minutes.”
This proposed solution by the Finns seems targeted to someone who will spray the medication into his nostrils when he gets the impulse to gamble so that he doesn’t gamble. But what about the person who wants to bet and does not want to be deterred?
There is no doubt that the gambling addiction we have in Nigeria is the type that is fuelled by poverty, unemployment and the urge to get rich quickly. Of course there are those who have nothing to lose when there’s no end in sight to their poverty or no possibility of the next meal. They may feel the need to use the last Kobo to try their luck. To these gamblers, is all hope lost? Who will save them?
Of course like all addictions – be it drug, alcohol or tobacco – the first thing is for an admission that there is a problem. The gamblers, the authorities, the society, especially parents must admit that there’s a problem. It is after this that strategies would need to be put in place to solve the problem.
And the first thing to do is to ban Baba Ijebu. Period.
Let the youths focus their energies and attention on more positive ways to earn a living without jeopardizing their future and that of the larger society.
I’m shocked that at some of the solutions to drug addiction professed by some the people mentioned in this write up. They recommend pills and nasal spray and stuff like that. Where have they been in the effort to control drug addiction. Addiction is a cognitive issue and as such cannot be cured or controlled by more drugs. Therapy is the preferred method of solving addiction where people with addictive personality are giving some coping skills to help manage and maybe get them out of it.
This is very timely and very apt. Had to let an intern go a fortnight ago after discovering that he had spent company PettyCash and diesel purchase money on these bets.
With bets going into tens of thousands, youths around the office considered him a hardened addict.
We had to inform his parents in the hope that they could still salvage some decency from him.
In those days I used to go to poll houses for my grandpa… It was crazy then. Thank God sha baba Don old so all those things Don stop..lol