The whimsical title 'Pains and Gains' may sound like the debut of the playwright devoted to expounding material gain. The five Acts and multiple scenes of the play explore religious moral challenges, which permeate and appear to asphyxiate normalcy out of contemporary Hausa society. This breezily written and passion-packed dialogue play entertains and instructs the reader-audience with its exposition of a duality of reprehensible and commendable facets of life in aquintensence of the Hausa-Islamic community. The familiar challenges for parents and guardians of striking a balance between a free, liberal life for children/wards and sobriety and composure, which would see these members of the future generation conducting a drugs- and crisis-free life, are made to seem daunting. The play's focus on school life, examination success and drugs in the life of children is complemented with a dissection of some of the trials the parents themselves go through.