Drugs: South-East Govs declare war on sale Mkpurumiri, confiscate premises, prosecute dealers

The governors’ stance is in response to the menace posed by the sale and consumption of illicit drugs, especially in the wake of the disruptions caused by the effect of crystal meth, aka mkpurummiri, which has hit the region like a storm.

The Chairman of the forum, David Umahi, who is also Governor of Ebonyi State, announced the decision of the five governors in a statement he signed after their emergency virtual meeting on November 30.

Furthermore, Umahi said, all dealers and consumers of illicit drugs shall be arrested and prosecuted.

The statement read: “We resolved to be very committed in our fight against hard drugs in our region, especially the new one called Methamphetamine, locally known in the South-East as Mkpurumiri.

“We have decided that all shops and locations where any hard drug is sold will be forfeited to the state government and all those promoting the trade or indulging in hard drugs shall be seriously isolated to face the law.

“Rehabilitation of those misled into hard drugs is also ongoing. We urge community leaders to give secret phone calls through the special numbers offered by our governors on security and hard drug.”

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The governor’s also strongly criticised a video clip and write-up making the rounds on social media which depicted the beheading of two policemen allegedly by youths who claimed to be members of the Indigenous People of Biafra/Eastern Security Network, IPOB/ESN.

“We have resolved among ourselves to work with security agencies to determine the authenticity of this video/report and if found to be true, the perpetrators would be arrested by all possible means to face the law.

 “We are aware of similar videos in the past and which when subjected to forensic review, were found out to have happened outside Nigeria. We assure Nigerians, especially the police community that we will not rest until we have done justice to this matter,”  the governors added.