Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, has revealed that 23 indigenes of the state are currently on death row in Indonesia for drug-related offences.
Soludo made this known on Wednesday, April 9, 2025, while addressing a group of All Progressives Congress members who defected to the All Progressives Grand Alliance in support of his re-election bid.
According to him, fake native doctors deceive young people into believing they can evade security checks when smuggling drugs by using charms.
“Go to Indonesia, 23 Ndi Anambra are on death row there for drug-related offences,โ 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 manโs scanner will go blind.
โThese young people believe them, and today, many of our people are languishing in jail across the world.โ
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.
โOne of the native doctors who is in detention, his son is a waiter in a hotel in Nnewi. If it was that simple, why didnโt he make his son a millionaire,โ 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).โ
The governor said such beliefs were damaging the mindset of youths in the state.
โThat 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.โ
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.
โWe 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
โThose 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 administrationโs resolve to continue the clampdown on promoters of Oke ite and other get-rich-quickย schemes.
