Feyishayo AKINOLA

“There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death." (Proverbs 14:12)

Across Nigeria, from Lagos to Kano, from Enugu to rural villages where the nearest clinic is hours away, a dangerous habit has become so normalized habit that most people no longer recognize it as a problem.

A child wakes up with fever and a mother reaches for leftover drugs. A teenager drowning in academic pressure discovers that codeine syrup quiets the anxiety. A trader buys a combination of drugs from a roadside Chemist based on a neighbor’s advice. None of these people believe they are doing anything dangerous.

But the evidence tells a very different story.

The scale is alarming. A study published in the Annals of African Medicine found self-medication rates of 87.7% among Nigerian adults; meaning nearly nine in ten adults have treated themselves without professional medical consultation. The reasons are understandable: Nigeria has only approximately 4 doctors per 10,000 people, poverty makes hospital visits difficult, and patent medicine stores dispensing prescription drugs freely are found on virtually every street.

But understanding why it happens does not make it safe.

The risks are real and serious. Self-medication frequently proceeds from a wrong self-diagnosis, meaning the actual condition continues to worsen while the people believe they are treating it. Dangerous drugs combinations cause organ damage that arrives without warning. Paracetamol found in nearly every Nigerian home causes fatal liver failure when taken in excess or combined with alcohol, yet most people are entirely unaware of this. Antibiotic misuse, rampant across Nigeria, is fueling a resistance crisis that the WHO warns could kill 4.1 million Africans annually by 2050.

Then there is codeine and tramadol. A 2018 BBC Africa Eye investigation revealed that approximately 3 million bottles of codeine syrup were consumed daily in Kano State alone not for coughs, but for self-medicate stress and emotional pain. This is an addiction wearing the mask of medicine.

Children are particularly vulnerable. A child's body is not like an adult’s body. Drug dosages, metabolism, and organ development differ significantly, and errors can be fatal. Research published in the Nigerian Journal of Paediatrics identified dosing errors in self-medication as a significant contributor to drug toxicity cases in Nigerian children. Traditional herbal remedies administered with complete confidence by caregivers have been linked to a significant proportion of paediatric poisoning admissions in Nigerian hospitals.

Meanwhile, studies show that over 60% of Nigerian secondary school students have self-medicated, with many using substances specifically to manage stress and anxiety, laying a dangerous foundation for future addiction.

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

The habits children learn about managing pain physically and emotionally will follow them for life. When we teach them, by example, to reach for a drug rather than seek proper help, we are writing a lesson they may spend years unlearning.

Our congregations contain parents making uninformed medical decisions for their children, teenagers self-medicating emotional pain, and adults who have built private systems of chemical coping they are too ashamed to discuss. We have a responsibility to create spaces where these conversations can happen, where health education is offered without judgment, and where the stigma around seeking professional medical care is dismantled.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)

Self-medication in Nigeria is not simply a medical problem. It is a ‘knowledge’ problem, a poverty problem, a mental health problem and it is a community problem that requires a community response.

Seek proper medical care. Protect your children. And know that the God who formed every human body in extraordinary complexity calls us to steward it with wisdom.