Six years since the day when Boko Haram gunmen stormed his home town of Bama, Abel Habila still has trouble blotting out the memories.
Prayer has helped, but far more effective are the red and yellow pills that he buys from the street dealers near his home. "At first they just helped me to forget the trauma of the attack, and how we had to run for our lives," he said, voice already drowsy from the two doses he has had this morning. "But now I take them for other reasons too – just to blot out the pain of life here in Nigeria, the boredom and hopelessness. My consumption has rocketed."
The trade name for what Mr Habila knows as "Red Caps" is Tramadol, an opiate-based painkiller originally used…
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