Adjudicatory control of narcotic and psychotropic drugs in Nigeria

As a party to the three major treaties on drugs, Nigeria is obliged to control the manufacture, use, distribution and possession of drugs. Drug control efforts in Nigeria rely heavily on interdiction, arrest and the criminal justice system. Adjudicatory control is one of the main mechanisms utilized in the criminal justice approach to drug control. Adjudicatory control is administered by the judiciary at the federal level, with the Federal High Court of Nigeria as the first and primary forum for dealing with drug cases. The Court controls drugs by establishing whether substances are considered to be narcotic or psychotropic under existing laws. Furthermore, it processes alleged offenders through a schematized mechanism of arraignment, trial, verdict and sentencing. In this context, the present article reviews 2,506 court cases to analyse the function of the Court as an institution of drug control. The analysis shows, among other things, that there is a wide disparity in the length of adjudicatory processes and sentences imposed for similar offences. Moreover, the possession and use of otherwise licit painkillers are being prosecuted under provisions enacted to control narcotic and psychotropic substances. This raises uncertainties in drug control efforts in particular, as the drugs that are expressly prohibited are not classified at all, not even according to their degree of harm to society. The result is a wide latitude of discretion afforded to executive and judicial officers in dealing with drug cases. Judicially, such latitude results in a disproportionate focus on possession of small quantities of narcotics, in contrast to larger quantities.

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