A mother of four children and three youths have been arrested by the Nigerian Navy in Atani, Ogbaru local government area of Anambra State for their involvement in the cultivation, distribution and sale of illicit drugs.
The woman, Mrs Ngozi Alum, 37 years, was picked up in their family house with large quantities of cannabis sativa recovered in their home when a team of the Nigerian Navy accompanied by the president-general of the Atani community, 40-year-old Mr Arinze Nzeli and some other members of the town union leadership stormed the house yesterday in an operation aimed at purging the community of all forms of criminality and criminal elements.
The husband of the woman, Mr Okwudili Alum, 42 years, was said to have sneaked out from the house immediately the security operatives arrived the premises of his house, ran and dived into the nearby River Niger and escaped.
Mrs Alum confessed in an interview with newsmen that sale and distribution of cannabis sativa has been their family’s business and only source of sustenance since she married Okwudili about 13 years ago, adding that while her husband handles supplying of the drugs to sellers within the community, and, outside, she is in charge of the sales to smokers and others who come to purchase from their house.
“We know that government banned sale and smoking of the drugs, but we don’t have any other source of income for sustenance. We wanted to stop the business when my husband started collecting levies from sand miners there, but, because some people have been fighting him, and, don’t want him to be collecting money from the miners, we have not been able to stop the business because we don’t have any other source of getting money”, Mrs Alum explained.
Also, arrested during the operation that lasted about four hours during which the town union president-general led the Naval operatives to the various flash-points and homes of those dealing in illicit drugs in the community, was a 32- year-old, Mr Onyema Uzoka who cultivated a sprawling cannabis sativa farm behind his house. Big parcels of already packaged cannabis and the seeds for distribution were recovered from his house where he maintains a shrine.
Uzoka stated that he was forced to go into the business because he lacked any other source of livelihood after graduating from business apprenticeship. He said that he was just one year old in the illicit drugs business.
The president-general of Atani town union told newsmen that his leadership deliberately invited the security operation to be carried out because they want to flush out criminals and cleanse the town of all forms of criminality lamenting that the economic and social activities in the area were crumbling because of the activities of hoodlums.
“Investors are leaving our community, and, the entire Ogbaru because the activities of bad characters in our area caused by smoking of hard drugs is chasing the investors out.
“After smoking hard drugs, they will be indulging in raping of women and girls, demanding illegal levies from investors, and engaging in armed robbery, etc.
“Before we have 20 sand mining sites in Atani, but, today we have only five because the investors have left because those youths after smoking hard drugs will go and start demanding illegal levies from them at the sites”, Arinze lamented.
He stated that since after the attack and burning down of the Atani police station by hoodlums about two years ago during which some police officers were killed, police have abandoned the community.
A director of a sand mining company in the community, Mr Chizoba Uyanne complained in the interview that they are being forced to pay N1,500 and N500 per big truck and small truck carrying sand by youths who levy them illegally.
The administrator of the Atani traditional ruler’s palace, Chief Daniel Nwabueze lamented that the entire 15 indigenous communities in Ogbaru have been turned into a “den of criminals” in recent time, and, explained that the operation carried out in Atani marked the final stage in the deliberate action initiated, and, agreed upon by the leaders of all the communities to purge the area of all forms of criminality and criminal elements.
He revealed that already certain traditional rituals had been performed in all the communities to smoke out and cleanse the various communities of criminalities.
Sources within the Onitsha Naval base whose men carried out the operation told newsmen that those arrested and the drugs recovered will be handed over to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, command in Anambra State.
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