Professor Isidore Obot is the founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA) in Uyo, Nigeria. He provided written responses to interview questions from Professor Virginia Berridge on 13 April 2025 and 14 July 2025.
Virginia Berridge: Isidore, tell me about your background and early days.
Isidore Obot: I was born in 1948 as the sixth of seven children in a small village in what is today Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. My parents had little western education, but we were brought up in what was a relatively prosperous Catholic home. My father learned to read the bible (mostly) in the local language and made sure that all his children, including my sisters, went to primary school at least, at a time when girls’ education was very uncommon. I started primary school at the age of seven in the only school in the village. This was a few years before Nigeria gained independence from Britain and a time when there was growing emphasis on educating young people to prepare them for post-independence development challenges. For good students who completed primary school there were opportunities for secondary education in missionary and government schools outside the village but nearby.
And how about your education? What schools did you attend and how did you end up in the United States?
I chose to attend a residential seminary school run by Catholic priests from Ireland whose primary motive was to educate young Catholic boys and prepare them for a career in the priesthood. It was a pleasant environment where we were introduced to some of the conveniences and pleasures of western civilization especially electricity. In my final year I was appointed senior prefect, but the year did not end well. This was 1967, the year the Nigerian civil war broke out in the eastern part of the country. Schools were shut in the affected area known as Biafra. However, before the end of the war in 1970 I was able to complete secondary education (General Certificate of Education) in a school located where the war had passed by and continued to obtain the Advanced GCE in 1971. When I look back at those years studying for these certificates, I remember how seriously we took our studies and the exposure we got from teachers who came from within and outside Nigeria. We read everything we could lay our hands on – required texts in English and Latin, popular literature, political tracts from Mao Zedong’s China, Tibetan Buddhism culture, Time magazine, Readers’ Digest, etc.
Before I was done with high school my sister and her husband had left Nigeria for university in the United States. He was the first beneficiary from my village of a study abroad scholarship programme for educational development. When it was time for me to apply for college, both of them agreed I should join them in the US and recommended a liberal arts Jesuit college in the city they were at the time. And so it was that my sojourn in and continued association with the US began at Loyola College in Baltimore in 1973, thanks to my sister and her husband. The college awarded me a scholarship to study biology in preparation for medical school. That was the wish of my sister, her husband and everyone back in the village. I was supposed to be the doctor in the family. Unfortunately for them I chose to study psychology, a subject that had intrigued me from my readings during the high school days in Nigeria but one that the family in the village knew nothing about.
By the time I completed secondary school and was ready for university it was relatively easy to decide on what course to pursue, even if my interest went against the wishes of family members. I left Nigeria for the US where I enrolled as a psychology major at Loyola College of Maryland in Baltimore. I arrived in the US four days before classes began for the second semester in February and braved the cold weather walking the snow to classes. With my sister’s family living in Baltimore, life in the US started out well for me. In less than four years I had completed the bachelor’s degree in psychology, proceeded to study for the master’s in the same department, and later moved to Howard University in Washington where I obtained the doctorate degree. Other academic experiences were to follow – a post-doctoral Master of Public Health at Harvard University to home in on my interest in addiction as a health issue, which was born during the doctoral programme, and fellowships here and there (e.g. at Johns Hopkins University, NIDA and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor).
What influence did your US education have on focusing your attention on addiction? You seem throughout your career to have had a strong interest in harm reduction.
There were some mentions of alcohol and drug addiction in psychology courses, but it was in the graduate programmes that there were direct references to addiction. First was a course in social psychology in which prevention of behavioural problems was addressed, and one example used was smoking. This was an eye-opener and, I would say, I got hooked to the study of addictive behaviours. This was during my doctoral training in social psychology at Howard University Washington DC, so when I went for a post-doctoral degree in public health at Harvard University School of Public Health it came as no surprise that I focused greater attention on substance abuse as a behavioural health issue. It was during this training that I came to immerse myself in the subject of alcohol and drugs and have since remained involved in the general area.
It is difficult to pinpoint the year that I started to develop interest in the field of addiction, but it goes back to my early education days in Nigeria. It started during secondary/high school as a general interest in reading about behaviour in foreign magazines, especially Time magazine, a source of current information about the world that was popular among secondary school students at the time. On the pages of this magazine, which was available in the school library or acquired through mail subscription, and also in Readers Digest, an African child was exposed to topics like alcohol and drug addiction, mental illness and other behavioural issues not on the regular syllabus. I was often intrigued by the explanations offered in the write-ups and enjoyed reading about these topics. This interest grew into a lifetime of study and work aimed at seeking clarification on why people do what they do even when the behaviour can be harmful to them, as in the case of drug use.
While studying in the US, I also developed a strong interest in survey research and in Nigeria of the 1980s there was little work done on the social research and the epidemiology of substance use. As a research fellow working with Jim Anthony at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health I was drawn to analysis of data from secondary sources like the US National Household Survey, which led to the publication of papers on the epidemiology of drug use in the US, especially on the prevalence, consequences, and social factors associated with drug use and addiction. I familiarized myself with well-known datasets like Monitoring the Future (a survey of youth in high school) at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, and surveys of alcohol and tobacco use by various US departments and agencies. I was preparing myself for an academic career in Nigeria when the time came to return home.
When you returned to Nigeria, how did you continue to further your interest in addiction research?
After successfully defending my dissertation, I first returned to Nigeria in late 1982 for a compulsory year of national service to the country. I went back to the US for post-doctoral training and then returned to Nigeria and took up an academic position at the University of Jos in 1985. This was in the department of psychology in the faculty of social sciences, a young department in what was then a beautiful town in northern Nigeria. At a time that foreign lecturers were leaving Nigeria because of what was becoming a difficult economic environment, academic positions were not difficult to find, and I was very well prepared for the job.
I was assigned several courses to teach and among them was one on the psychology of substance abuse, which was the only course on addiction anywhere in the university. I also taught social medicine in the department of community health in the medical school where there was mention of substance abuse. These were the two opportunities that existed to sustain my interest in addiction, but these were not enough.
My colleagues and I needed to do research and research required money which was largely unavailable. What was available in small amounts was personal funds, which was often the only means of funding research. However, by the late 1980s there was still some university funding for some research, and I was awarded a small grant to conduct a population survey of alcohol and other drug use in the central region of the country. This study resulted in the publication of the monograph ‘Drinking behaviour and attitudes in Nigeria: A general population survey in the middle belt’ and other publications, like a chapter in the World Health Organization (WHO) publication ‘Surveys of drinking patterns and problems in seven developing countries’. Led by Robin Room, this project was my first direct contribution to the work of WHO in what was to become a longstanding affiliation and collaboration with that organization.
Before this survey was conducted, the little we knew about alcohol and other addictive substances in Nigeria and other African countries was mostly from clinical data obtained from patients by psychiatrists working in mental health facilities. Addiction was not regarded as a serious problem in Nigeria before independence in 1960, but these professionals saw it coming and called for interventions mostly through law enforcement. The problem was cannabis and the way to limit use was to limit supply. Many still view the problem today through a law enforcement prism but there are strident calls to address the social aspects of drug use which call for appropriate research and policy.
The late 80s to early 90s was a period of growing interest in all aspects of the drug issue in Nigeria, from trafficking in cocaine and heroin to increased use of cannabis and a variety of other substances. The country featured prominently in stories of arrests for global drug trafficking and from what was primarily a trafficking country its citizens became users in large numbers and addiction slowly became a disorder of public health concern. Before then focus was primarily on cannabis and to some extent psychostimulants. These were the substances reportedly used by mostly young people in urban areas as reported in the earliest published studies by Professor Lambo and colleagues working in psychiatric facilities. They found that many of their young patients had histories of cannabis use. Though findings from clinical settings did not establish a causal relationship between cannabis use and schizophrenia, cannabis became a dreaded drug in Nigeria because of the reported association with mental disorders. It is the drug ‘that makes you mad’ and its use and trafficking continue to attract stiff penalties in Nigerian drug law till today.
Tell me about the founding of the Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse.
There was a clear interest among social scientists in drug supply and demand issues by the late 80s when Dr Ona Pela founded the Nigerian Institute on Substance Abuse. It was an effort to bring together academics and young professionals to share ideas and learn from each other, but it did not last for a long time.
I was moved by this limitation and my background in social science to expand the focus of addiction research to include the social and behavioural aspects of the problem. This led to the founding of a research society in 1990 known as the Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA) to encourage research in alcohol and drugs by different types of professionals. CRISA has grown over the years and has served as a driver of research on the epidemiology of substance use and on policy, prevention and treatment. It is significant to note that CRISA was selected by the Nigerian government and international organizations to lead the first national population survey of problem drug use conducted in the country in 2017. The centre has again won the contract to conduct the second survey of problem drug use in Nigeria with funding from a major global organization. This is indeed a testimony to the resilience of our centre and trust in our ability to deliver at a high level.
I am widely known in my role as the founder and executive director of CRISA through two popular and important works carried out by the centre. The first is the International Conference on Drugs, Alcohol and Society in Africa, which was launched in Nigeria in 1991. The conference has been run consistently since 1991 and serves as a much sought-after forum for the presentation of scientific information and sharing of ideas among researchers and other professionals working on addiction in Africa. Participants come from within Africa and from among academics working on African issues outside the continent.
The second area of work seen as a key accomplishment in the addiction field in Africa is related to the first. This is the publication of the African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies. This scientific journal, of which I serve as the editor-in-chief, was launched in 2000 and has been published since then. It is not only a publishing outlet for academic research in Africa, but it is used for capacity enhancement through training in research and publishing skills among young researchers in Africa.
My work and that of the centre with which I am affiliated has grown since the late 80s till today in ways we never anticipated. From problems and issues related to alcohol and cannabis, we are today experiencing a rapid upsurge in the use of all categories of addictive substances, including amphetamines and opioid analgesics. My involvement with the field has expanded from research in alcohol epidemiology to the provision of care for people in need, to serving in different advisory roles to major organizations like the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the African Union and the Economic Commission of West African States.
CRISA was born at a meeting of interested university colleagues and concerned government officials I convened in Jos in 1990. It was incorporated in 2000 and from the beginning the focus was on bringing greater understanding to the drugs situation in Nigeria and Africa through research and dissemination of research findings. Hence opportunities were created to achieve that major objective, including the publication of a journal (the African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies) and books, launching of a conference series on addiction issues in Africa (first as a biennial and later in 2013 an annual event), and planning of training workshops on publishing addiction science for aspiring drug researchers.
I believe both the journal and the conference series are still going strong. Is that correct?
Yes, you are right. The journal is now in its 24th volume and is published in two issues per volume. As a founding editor-in-chief I have witnessed the birth and growth of the publication as an important outlet for studies on Africa for the global scientific community.
The conference series has also blossomed in the past 25 years it has been in existence. The focus is on Africa, and each conference is devoted to a particular theme based on relevance at the time. Participation is global, open to scientists from any continent whose research addresses addiction-related issues in Africa.
Can you give some examples of the content of the conference series? Are they Africa focused, international, both?
Some of the major themes selected for the conferences over the years include:
- The Social Costs of Drug Abuse and Drug Trafficking
- Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment: What Works?
- Social and Economic Consequences of Drug Abuse: Research and Policy Consideration for Sub-Saharan Africa
- Substance Abuse and Social Development
- Substance Abuse and HIV/AIDS in Africa
- Social Determinants of Substance Abuse in Africa: From Knowledge to Action
- Public Health and Drug Policy in Africa: Beyond the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS 2016)
- Towards the Reform of Drug Law and Policy in Africa: Research, Practice and Advocacy Considerations
- Non-Medical Use of Prescription and Over the Counter Medications: Causes, Consequences and Effective Response
- Approaches to Demand Reduction
- Substance Use, Addictive Behaviours and COVID- 19
- Community Based Approaches to Substance Use Interventions
- Working with Local Communities to Reduce Drug and Alcohol Problems
It sounds like CRISA has been a great success!
For the past thirty-five years CRISA has no doubt survived fairly well as an independent research organization. But as the executive director all these years I can say that it has not been an easy ride. Financial support has been lacking most of the time; but we have survived this long because at different times we have had notable support from individuals and organizations from across the world.
Both the journal and the conference series have benefitted from grants and contributions from the IOGT (Sweden), FORUT (Norway), South African Medical Research Council, the World Health Organization, EU, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), African Union, among others. Using the conference as a platform for their responses to the drug problem in Africa, the UNODC, AU Commission, ECOWAS Commission and Open Society Foundation have collaborated with CRISA at different times, usually by sponsoring the participation of presenters, supporting resource persons, and bearing the cost of publications. Local governmental organizations have also provided some funding for the work of CRISA though because of the general lack of funds for this kind of work their contributions have been less significant and irregular. Instead of providing support to NGOs that are involved in research and interventions, relevant branches of government like the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) depend on external funding when that is available from partners as per their involvement in the national survey on drugs, provision of harm reduction services, and development of evidence-based alcohol policy. Without dedicated and regular local funding for research and services in the field of addiction it will be difficult to reduce the prevalence of drug use and improve the quality of life of people with drug use disorders.
Tell me about the challenges of working in the field of addiction in Africa.
Working in the field of addiction in Africa has not been easy for me and for colleagues at CRISA and beyond. Addiction has been and remains a highly stigmatized area, and this may affect research findings and access to services needed by people who use drugs. Drug use is also an illicit activity, and this is a huge challenge in the conduct of research where fear can be expected to influence responses, especially in the kind of population-based research CRISA is called upon to carry out. Drug laws that prohibit use often affect willingness/ability to seek treatment and availability of services. CRISA recognizes that something has to be done to make treatment available to problem drug users and therefore we are engaged with other governmental and non-governmental organizations to bring this about. For example, CRISA is a longstanding member of the Technical Working Group (TWG) for harm reduction services in Nigeria. We are also known for our stand on drug policy that abhors punishment and focuses on evidence.
A key challenge experienced in our work is indeed unavailability of funding. I mentioned earlier that CRISA has received funds to conduct national surveys in Nigeria from the Nigerian government in collaboration with international organizations. We have also received small grants to conduct research on alcohol, train practitioners, organize our international conferences, and provide services for people who use drugs. These are only a small fraction of the need we have expressed. In summary, it is rare to find funding to do work in the field. Domestic funding is hard to come by because the money is just not there in a competitive environment where other problems are lurking or because addiction is not an issue worthy of attention. And, as stated earlier, there are belief systems in some countries that have negative impact on the responses to drug use and drug use disorders.
Were there any particular people who influenced your career?
During my training in public health, I had the opportunity to focus on research conducted in West Africa as early as the 1960s up to the 90s. In Nigeria there were just a handful of established mental health experts with more than a passing interest in addiction. One of these was Adeoye Lambo, professor of psychiatry at the University of Ibadan and head of the world-famous psychiatric hospital at Aro, Abeokuta. Lambo later became deputy director of the WHO in Geneva. I learned a lot about addiction from his published work on drugs (in particular cannabis), especially on the point that drugs are not only a mental health issue but also a social (criminal justice) problem. In my meeting with him at his home and at the Lambo Foundation office we spent time discussing research on drugs in general and the role of CRISA in particular. His moral support was crucial in the early days of the centre. It is difficult to forget his willingness to sit down and talk for a long time with a young academic from the social sciences. While I have had the good fortune of meeting and working with many experts in different areas (from epidemiology to policy), and in different parts of the world, the early contact with Professor Lambo solidified my interest in addiction research in Nigeria. I was convinced from the association with him that I could survive and thrive in the academic world with an interest in addiction.
In your opinion, where is the field of addiction science going in Nigeria, and perhaps Africa as a whole, if it’s even possible to generalise in that way?
I earlier mentioned a few challenges facing the field in our struggle to grow and remain relevant as problem solvers in Nigeria and Africa. In spite of these challenges, we have to make progress in the quality and quantity of our research output. This calls for an overall improvement in specific skills and capacity for research among an increasing number of academics in the country/region.
Using the papers presented at the CRISA conferences and those published in the African journal as an example, there seems to be significant diversification in the topics of research interest. From mostly descriptive epidemiology research utilizing small convenient samples, we are beginning to see more works that, for example, seek to predict the outcomes of prevention, treatment and policy interventions. Because of developments in the policy arena and support from the UNODC (United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime) there is all likelihood that we are heading in the direction of more of this kind of work. For example, the Nigerian government has approved the practice of harm reduction as a drug use intervention in the country, and the UNODC has funded trials in school prevention, all of which require assessments of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness.
Together with these developments is the lesson of the national survey which was first conducted in 2017 and about to be repeated in 2025. The publication of the first national survey in 2018 was a real eye-opener to policymakers and the general public in Nigeria and beyond. Findings from the survey more than confirmed fears of a worsening situation in terms of drug use and drug-related problems and led to calls for appropriate evidence-based policy responses to the situation. I believe that the future lies in this direction. Addiction is a health and social problem with well-established solutions in some instances. But these solutions exist only in a few societies and are meaningless to others who either deny the problems or are hampered in their delivery by of cultural beliefs and legal restrictions. Research will need to move in the direction of providing the evidence, making the information widely available to policymakers and professionals, and always remembering that we are first and foremost concerned about the welfare of the population. It is my wish that we are heading in the direction of greater relevance to the social environment and much improved quality irrespective of whether it is biological or social research on addiction or whether it is intervention to curb the problems we have already.
Is there a common path to a career in addiction science in Nigeria? How has the field grown as a profession in recent years?
There is no common path in the journey to a career as an addiction scientist. University degrees in addiction are rare in the country as it seems to be the case in other countries. Academics from a wide variety of backgrounds – psychology, sociology, psychiatry, education, public health – might take a required course that has addiction topics and develop an interest in the field. In the Nigerian university system only the departments of psychology have a required course in addiction and students in post-graduate clinical programmes are exposed beyond that.
Medical students are also routinely exposed to addiction studies and those who go on to specialize in psychiatry have a lot more opportunity to learn about the subject. There are increasing opportunities these days to acquire knowledge and skills in addiction through workshops, certification and continuing education programmes. There is indeed quite an active engagement of young academics with foreign agencies that run diploma programmes especially focusing on interventions for people who use drugs. The perception that problematic use of illicit drugs is on the rise, which was reinforced by the national survey, has aided in the proliferation of these programmes. So, while there are opportunities here and there to learn more about the field and to enhance capacities, there is need for the establishment of stand-alone and degree-awarding programmes within social science and health faculties to give addiction the independence it requires to be recognized as a core discipline in higher education. Or at least addiction can be made an area of specialization in postgraduate schools within relevant departments. We may be far from an ideal situation, but this is beginning to happen and should be encouraged.
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