Nigeria, April 14 -- In a society increasingly uneasy about what lies beneath everyday normalcy, the Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Mohamed Buba Marwa, has pushed forward a bold policy: drug testing for new and returning students in tertiary institutions. Backed by the Minister of Education, Olatunji Alausa, the initiative reflects a shift from denial to detection, grounded in the logic of early intervention, deterrence, and public health rather than punishment. In line with the Biopsychosocial Model, it treats drug abuse as a complex condition shaped by environment, psychology, and biology, with rehabilitation, not expulsion as its core response.

Yet beyond policy, the "Marwanic drug test" speaks to a dee...