– Selling Points, Houses For Demolition
BY RAPHAEL ONYEKACHUKWU, OWERRI – The Imo State Government says its declared war against those dealing on illicit drugs and related crime is to save the future of young Nigerians and generations yet unborn.
Governor Rochas Okorocha, who dropped the hints on his administration’s resolve to prosecute the war in the State, said any building where such illicit drugs are sold will be demolished with the owner made to face the wrath of the law.
A statement by Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Sam Onwuemeodo on Sunday, said the State government has already set up a high-powered taskforce on illicit drugs and other related matters to address the worrying development in the State.
The Taskforce, headed by an experienced Legal Practitioner, Barrister Mrs. Ijeoma Igboanusi, will collaborate with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in the State to fish out the takers and sellers of these illicit drugs for appropriate sanctions by the government.
According to the CPS, Governor Okorocha spoke at the Government House, Owerri while receiving the Taskforce Chairman and members, stressing that this generation and the ones yet unborn must be saved from this imminent destruction.
“Let me congratulate the Taskforce on illicit drugs and to encourage them on the risk ahead. We will fund this taskforce very well to be sure they lack nothing in the course of executing their job. We shall convert the Cultural Centre in Orlu as a rehabilitation Centre and the one in Okigwe shall be called the Drug Rehabilitation Centre.
“The society is finished. The young men are gone and what that means is that all issues we are struggling for, when we are no more in this world, we have nobody to handover to. It is very very worrisome and I weep about it because I now realize how empty it is with our children. You are speaking and they are looking at you but not with you”.
“We have problem in this land. Please, the Church should pray. And I don’t know what the Bishops and Reverends and Pastors are doing in this nation. We have gotten to a situation where you see a Child rise up in the morning and slap the mother before going out. I’m passing a law now that after 20years no child is to stay with the mother anymore, they should leave the house. So that they can learn to stand alone”, the statement further said.
“One of the decisions we have taken is that once we discover a place they are selling the drug, we must bring down the house, no matter who owns the house. Once the landlord cannot control what people do in his house, that place must come down. If marijuana stops, kidnapping, armed robbery will stop. Our traditional rulers know them and they are afraid of them in the villages. So they have become too powerful. And we must as a matter of urgency, address this issue of illicit drugs”, the statement reads.
