According to Chukwuma Soludo, the governor of Anambra State, 23 of the state’s indigenous people are presently serving drug-related sentences in Indonesia.
Speaking to a group of All Progressives Congress members who had switched to the All Progressives Grand Alliance in favor of his reelection campaign, Soludo made this announcement on Wednesday, April 9, 2025.
He claims that phony native doctors trick young people into thinking they can use charms to get around security checks when smuggling drugs.
“Go to Indonesia, 23 Ndi Anambra are on death row there for drug-related offences,” he said.
“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.”
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.
“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,” he said.
“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 explained that the government is committed to cracking down on those who advocate risky behaviors in the name of spirituality, but it is not against traditional religion.
“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 this new crop of criminal native doctors are doing is deceit, and we will not allow that to continue,” he added while reaffirming his administration’s resolve to continue the clampdown on promoters of Oke ite and other get-rich-quick schemes”.
