Chukwuma Soludo, Anambra State Governor, has said 23 indigenes of the state are currently on death row in Indonesia for drug-related offences.
Soludo made this known on Wednesday while addressing a group of All Progressives Congress members who defected to the All Progressives Grand Alliance in support of his re-election bid.
“Go to Indonesia, 23 Ndi Anambra are on death row there for drug-related offences,” he said.
He attributed the development to the influence of fake native doctors who deceive young people into believing they can evade security checks when smuggling drugs by using charms.
“These native doctors will deceive you that they will prepare a charm that when you carry drugs and enter the airport, the white man’s scanner will go blind.
“These young people believe them, and today, many of our people are languishing in jail across the world,” he stated.
Soludo warned that anyone caught making such deceptive claims would be arrested, noting that many of the self-proclaimed native doctors could not even use their so-called powers to improve their own lives.
The governor added, “One of the native doctors who is in detention, his son is a waiter in a hotel in Nnewi. If it was that simple, why didn’t he make his son a millionaire?
“One of them that we arrested has sworn that he is just a content creator, yet he has used things like these to deceive our young people that you can become rich without doing any work, as far as you have done oke Ite (money rituals).”
The governor said such beliefs were damaging the mindset of youths in the state.
“That is why you see young people who wake up in the morning and retire to beer parlours drinking, hoping to get rich later in life,” he added.
He clarified that the state is not opposed to traditional religion but is determined to clamp down on those who promote dangerous practices in the name of spirituality.
“We are not against traditional worshippers; what we are against is people who are doing dangerous medicines and charms.
“We have always known those who are into traditional practices, they have things they believe in, and they were about the most upright people then.
“Those were people who believed that if you did the wrong thing, you could be killed by the gods of the land. But what these new crop of criminal native doctors are doing is deceit, and we will not allow that to continue,” he said.
Soludo reaffirmed his administration’s resolve to continue the clampdown on promoters of Oke ite and other get-rich-quick schemes.
