Again when I got to the middle of the road, there is this normal habit of mine that I always exhibit. Coming to my house I am always high with drugs, drunkenness, and even local drinks –Jedi, soldier root, monkey tea and other small herbal drugs.
Normally I
lean on the wall of my house before I put in the key into the padlock. I saw it
and in that same mode and before I know it I fell on the ground. That Express Way
is 6 lanes; you know how dangerous that place is, a very busy lane and fell
down there with my face on the ground. After a short time, I saw a lot of legs
with so many people gathered. It caused a lot of holdup. An elderly woman held
me to her legs; she got water and gave it to me.
I got
revived; and then I turned back and went to my big friend at Charlie boy’s
place. My friend asked me where I had gone to and I told him that I went out to
get something, not knowing that I had a broken limb already. My limb was broken
and blood was gushing out from my leg, my trouser was stained and I also had
bruises on my face due to the fall. He told that if he had known, he wouldn’t
have let me go out.
Clickhealth: What else could you recall while you
were on the ground on that road (Kubwa Express?
Charles Dakole: While I was
on the ground on the tarred road, I had no idea of anything. I lost my mind, it’s
just normal when you are on drugs, I think one of the basic things is that loss
of memory. You don’t always have that pattern of reasoning; you are subscribing
to things that didn’t happen. It’s just lost memory; you don’t have the memory
to think about anything that happens.
This bad
habit took me very long time, wasted the whole of my time and wasted my resources;
and you know very well that there is no way you can be serious about anything.
You can spend all of the money you have as long as you get high. We call it
“high”
Clickhealth: That’s the next question I was going
to ask you. How do drug addicts, those on drugs, deal with money?
Charles Dakole: The reason why
you see people who are addicts going to beg people for money is when they are
low. Some people go to the extreme where they do menial jobs. Why you see some
responsible people get into things you know that they shouldn’t get themselves
involved in is because, as soon as you become high, under the influence of
drugs, there is no knowledge, no intelligence, no ideas about how to manage
your resources.
You will spend everything; to a very large extent, you will even dash money to people who do not need it. There is this illusion, like everybody around you is down. You see people who are properly fed, people who are looking better than you, as if they are hungry; and before you know it, you start giving them money. So in terms of financial control abilities, you don’t have. Nobody who is into drug has a total control of his finances.
Clickhealth: While under drug, how do you see people?
Charles Dakole: If you are under drugs, one of the
basic things you see about people is that they are weaklings-people who are
helpless. People who need help, in as much as you need help, more than they do
but that’s how you perceive them. That’s why you can give people your last card
(money). You can have ₦100,000 and just dash it out in an instant, not minding
how you are going to get it; but the thought going on inside you is that
anytime you need money you are going to get it.
Clickhealth: You told me before now that you were even selling your
property?
Charles Dakole: Selling your property, if you are
under the influence of drug, is an understatement. You sell everything;
sometimes you even wish you could sell yourself. That’s the funny part of drug.
The
reason why you sell most of these property is because, number one; you’ve been
in this drug stuff for a long time, and there is this particular time range
that you must remain in that your level of highness. For me, then, mine was
from 6pm to 11pm. So no matter where I am, even if I am on transit, I will make
sure I lie to the driver that I want to ease myself so long as it falls within
that time. You can even be seated with the president on a very special matter
to discuss, so long as the discussion has come before or after that time,
within that time, I would surely leave.
That’s what
addiction can do to you; you must leave and attend to the drugs. So within that
time range if you don’t have money, you must sell. You can sell a phone you
bought with ₦100,000 for ₦6,000. In fact you can sell it for ₦2,000 as long as
you want to use it to buy “crack”. As long as you are able to get into that state
of mind that you are used to and that is why it is a very bad thing. I wouldn’t advise anybody to go into it. I am
not just talking from my own experience, I have cartels of friends who are in
the same character, about 20 of us and none of us has ever been responsible and
some are even dying in the act.
There is
this other close friend, a senior man, he has a family. He took us out with his
car to a fuel station, bought fuel. I and my friends were under the influence
of drugs; before you know it, somehow, we left the car in the fuel station for
a period of three weeks. It got to about two weeks before we remembered that we
went out with his car.
The fuel
station management had already gone to the police to report that someone came
and left his car and they do not know the owner and that they want them to have
knowledge about this happening three weeks ago.
He now
recalled and came to my house and asked me if I had seen his car and I said no,
I didn’t see your car and that he should go and ask Kelvin. We trekked to
Kelvin’s place because we live in the same environment. He asked Kelvin and he
said no that he had no idea about it. I think it was now about three weeks or a
month before someone saw the car parked at the fuel station and when we
returned we told him “come we saw your car parked at the filling station” It
was then he remembered and called me and Kelvin. We saw the car parked there;
for about 1 month or there about, so drug is not a good thing even if you think
that you are a strong man, you will surely forget, you must lose your head and
I was in it for about 15 to 20 years.
Clickhealth: You also mentioned about you travelling to kwale (Delta
State)
Charles Dakole: I think the thing that triggered my
travelling to kwale, my same friend
Kelvin and Douglas, we got to the bunk, a bunk is a place where they sell weed,
crack, drug, and we smoked one particular weed. We just told ourselves that
this weed is a good one so we asked the guy where he got this one because the
weed was better than the one that we bought from the bunk. He now said that he
bought it from kwale in Delta State; and we were residents in Abuja. I have not
been to that place before so we went into conclusion that the weed is a good
one and we need to travel.
***Interviewee can be
contacted directly with his phone number +234 8137824948.