Nigeria’s newly arrived cohort of pupils started this semester under rules that none of their predecessors have faced. Guidelines the Federal Ministry of Education made public in April require every newly admitted secondary student to take a drug test at the point of entry [note: the link to the guidance is currently down].
With Lagos’ schools reopened on 14 September and other states following, this term is the first in which the policy can bite. TalkingDrugs spoke to the guardian of one child who described the experience of them being removed from schools after a drugs test as “traumatic” and a “denial of their fundamental rights.”
“It hinders the student’s access to education in the interim and maybe for life,” said Henry Okiwu, Team Lead at YouthRISE Nigeria, a national network representing young people who use drugs.
Though the tests begin at the school gates, the regime does not end there. School students can face impromptu tests at least once a year, with the rules extending to both universities and polytechnic institutions . The guidelines also cite a 2022 National Council on Education resolution making drug tests as a mandatory criterion for admission and examination.
Officially, Nigerian secondary school guidelines prioritise “health over punishment”. Critics of the system however argue that these policies have built exclusion into a system where an estimated 18.3 million children are already out of school.
The rules arrive as Nigeria prepares a new drug masterplan that documents seen by TalkingDrugs suggest will give harm reduction a far greater role. Advocacy groups see the policy as the opposite of reducing hard.
“The policy is backed by existing prohibitive and punitive laws,” Okiwu said, “it reinforces the stigma and isolation faced by students who use drugs with long term ripple effects.”
Setting the standard
In practice, the new guidelines mandate a urine test which looks for different metabolates, indicating the presence of a range of illicit drugs. If a student tests positive for any substance, a three-stage response is initiated. First, mandatory counselling supervised by the school. Second, they are referred to a professional. Third, the student is temporarily suspended so they can undergo rehabilitation. In universities and polytechnics, suspended students need a fit-to-return certificate before they being re-admitted to education.
Students who test positive but refuse to participate in the system can be separated from school until they are found to be stable. No publicly available document yet offers a definition of what “stable” means. Students must comply with the drug tests or risk losing their place in the education system at least for that year.
The guardian of the student excluded for failing a drug test, told TalkingDrugs that the decision had a “devastating impact on my career, finances, and life of our ward and our family can only be imagined but not described.”
Even for students who do not test positive, there is a price. Okiwu estimated the cost of each test at between ₦7,500 and ₦10,000. This is in line with the pricing offered by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA): the agency offers paid drug tests to any member of the public that requires it for school, work, travel or any other purpose. Okiwu warned that this a financial burden for parents and guardians, many of whom may already be struggling with the costs of education (while education is free, there are many associated costs to schooling).
No room for rehab
In his foreword to the new guidelines, Education Minister Tunji Alausa lists rehabilitation and punishment among the document’s strategies. The NDLEA insists the drug testing scheme is meant to be protective, not coercive. In April, its chair, Brigadier General Buba Marwa, told the national students’ union the drug integrity test was preventive, not punitive; the union’s leadership pledged its support for the policy.
It is easy to see how this could be true. The three responses to a student testing positive do seem to focus on rehabilitation; early drug interventions can help reduce problematic drug use in the long run. However, for the guidelines to be successful, the rehabilitation they promise needs to actually be available, and that seems not to be the case.
The one person that TalkingDrugs was able to speak to with experience of this system, the ward of the student excluded, described the “total absence of support systems, the neglect of students throughout the period of rustication [the Nigerian term for exclusion] and blocking of their access to their student’s portal.” They went on to decry the “stigmatisation and colossal waste of resources based on independently unverified, faulty, or manipulated tests.”
“It’s mind boggling,” they concluded.
In 2024, a Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health director said more than 40% of “high-risk” people who use drugs wanted treatment but could not access it. There’s evidence that those that do get into rehabilitation suffer serious violence, ill-treatment and involuntarily held within state-run or private religious facilities. These conditions don’t create an attractive environment for those that have to go through it to stay in school.
After the school guidelines were published, commentators began questioning whether specialised youth-focused rehabilitation facilities actually exist in every region, warning that suspended students could end up with neither education nor care.
According to the Drug Harm Reduction Advocacy Network (DHRAN), a Nigerian organisation led by people who use drugs, the provision of rehabilitation facilities is woefully lacking. “There are only 11 model treatment centres in the country which were capacitated by the UNODC. These services are centered mainly in major cities. None of these centres have been trained on young-person specific treatment or rehabilitation,” DHRAN’s spokesperson told TalkingDrugs.
Testing may also displace use rather than prevent it. Okiwu warned that students might “pivot to use of synthetic and unconventional drugs” to evade drug test detection. The guidelines themselves list non-conventional drugs already circulating among young people, including skuchies – a drink mix made of zobo, cannabis, codeine and tramadol.
Without provision for rehabilitation, the policy’s promises fall entirely flat. Peel back the harm reduction language, and you’re left with the security ethos that forms the guidelines’ spine.
In the policy document itself, the National Council on Education says that drug use is one of the main security catalysts facing Nigeria. When the testing plan was first announced in 2025, NDLEA chair Marwa linked student drug use to terrorism and banditry. He told students that if they used drugs and were found out, there would be consequences.
Nonetheless, DHRAN raised serious concerns of the long-lasting consequences of removing young people from schools. “From stories from drug users, suspension at school could be a disincentive to return to school,” a spokesperson said.
Out of class, out of sight
Nigerian advocates have long argued that a criminal justice response to drugs reinforces stigma and discrimination. The new guidelines tie treatment to disciplinary committees and gatekeeping, a design that pushes the same logic into the classroom.
The evidence that testing curbs adolescent drug use is weak. A US study found that perceived school drug testing was not associated with changes in students’ substance use, while a respectful school climate was linked to less initiation. The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes widespread school testing, citing a lack of evidence.
Nigeria is not the first country to reach for the specimen cup. The Philippines’ drug enforcement agency once proposed testing children aged ten and over, a plan the country’s own education department opposed.
For DHRAN, the alternative is a response that is “not abstinence-based but rights-based”. It would support young people to reduce the harms of their drug use “without disrupting their education; no matter how many times they are tested positive.”
DHRAN also warned that drug use, like alcohol, can harm young people whose brains are still developing. Okiwu said the emphasis should be on prevention.
Right now, a new cohort of students is about to line up outside Nigeria’s Unity Colleges. They will take a drug test at the gate to secure their place in an education system already struggling with 20 million students not in school. The government says the tests are there to find the students who need help. Its critics warn the tests may prevent even more from participating in education. For the students, one wrong step could decide their future.
