DRUG ABUSE EDUCATION AS A PREVENTIVE SOCIAL POLICY FOR REDUCING YOUTH VULNERABILITY TO TERRORISM IN NIGERIA: EVIDENCE FROM SOCIAL POLICY STATISTICS

Abstract

Drug use, educational exclusion, youth vulnerability and terrorism represent interconnected but analytically distinct challenges within Nigeria’s social and security environment. This study examines drug abuse education as a preventive social-policy instrument for reducing youth vulnerability to conditions associated with insecurity and violent extremism. It adopts a qualitative documentary research design and analyses secondary statistical and institutional evidence from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization (WHO), European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA), and Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP). Nigeria’s national drug-use survey estimated that 14.4% of persons aged 15–64, equivalent to approximately 14.3 million people, had used psychoactive substances other than alcohol and tobacco during the preceding year; however, the underlying data are historical and should not be interpreted as a current 2026 prevalence estimate (UNODC, 2019). More recent administrative evidence indicates that NDLEA conducted 10,501 sensitisation programmes and provided counselling or treatment to 24,375 drug users between January 2021 and March 2025 (NDLEA, 2025a). Meanwhile, approximately 10.5 million Nigerian children aged 5–14 remain out of school (UNICEF, 2025a), while Nigeria recorded 171 terrorist incidents and 750 terrorism-related deaths in 2025 (IEP, 2026). These statistics measure different phenomena and do not establish that drug use causes terrorism. The study argues that drug abuse education should be integrated with educational inclusion, life-skills development, early identification, counselling, treatment, youth development and community-based prevention. It recommends stronger national statistical systems, wider preventive education, integrated prevention pathways and longitudinal outcome evaluation.