Create Business For Smugglers –– Soyinka
it will fall on the black market to direct sales of the product. We believe that government must have thought it through and not create business for smugglers.
How do you feel about companies indicted in the documentary denying involvement and saying the personnel are either not their staff or acted on their own? In journalism our responsibility is to tell the story and also give the right of reply. In this instance, we have done a bit; we asked them questions and published their responses as it is. The beauty of it is that it is left for the public to judge if the companies are responsible or not. It is also left for the regulatory authorities to determine whether they want to buy that responses or no. but the way things have progressed after the documentary, it does not seem that the regulatory authorities totally bought those responses.
Of course, government has gone ahead to ban codeine and cough syrup with codeine. The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is now out to raid the companies mentioned in the documentary and will make their findings public. That to me does not suggest that they bought the argument that the personnel involved were not their staff. I do not think Emzor denied that the personnel involved was not their staff; the company accepted that he was their staff, but said they do not condone what he was doing and has gone ahead to dismiss him. The company has also gone ahead to suspend the production of cough syrup with codeine. This was before government banned the production and importation of the substance. For a man at the centre of activities, would you describe the steps taken by Emzor as laudable?
I would say it is a step in the right direction. A lot is still required, not just from Emzor, but journalists, pharmacists, companies, government and the society at large. We all have a role to play in this situation. And it is only when we play our roles well that the positive changes will come.
As a Nigerian, what could be the reasons behind some of our youth taking to drugs and how best can it be tackle? Well, it is part of the responsibilities we all have to face. But for me as a journalist, it will be difficult to effectively give reasons that make people abuse substances. I think that should be in the purview of sociologists and psychologists to answer, but as a parent, how much attention do we give to our children? How well do we play our roles? How much effort do we put to monitor them after school hours? Also, the regulatory authorities should ensure that these drugs do not get into wrong hands. Had they done their work properly we might not be having this problem? Government also has a role to play in ensuring social equilibrium.
In one of the scenes, you were emphatic that you are taking the substance to university and secondary school students, as well as primary school pupils and the man said he is in business and that business is business. How did you feel at that moment as a father?
I felt bad about how the individual did not quite seem to understand the negative effect of the business he was talking about. But I needed to be clear about what I was communicating with him because I didn’t want to give anybody the doubt that he did not understand clearly what I was suggesting to him, the implications of his actions and what kind of deal he was going into. I just don’t want to leave anyone in doubt. I was also wandering if he has children and that what happens by the time he discovers that some of the products he is selling gets to his children. Often time, some people who do this kind of business do not seem to understand the damaging effect they are doing, not just to others, but to themselves.
What’s your take on the value orientation of the average Nigerian businessmen? We have a very good number of honest and credible businessmen and women. The instances we saw in the documentary cannot define the whole body of them. Of course, you will fine bad eggs like that in any other sphere of life in different parts of the world and it is our general responsibility to ensure that there is no hiding place for them.