Police arrest community youths who flogged officer for drug use

…The officer impregnated under-aged girl —Youth president

…Our children dropped out of school because of drug — Community elder

By Davies Iheamnachor

NKPOLU Community in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State was in pandemonium on Tuesday as fierce looking policemen invaded following the alleged assault of a serving cop, Inspector Joseph Nyian, who was caught by the youths while taking illicit drugs. It was alleged that the police officer, who does not reside in the community only visited regularly to take the illicit drug, and that he was among the drug users nabbed and flogged by the youths.

The police officer, had after the incident quickly rushed to the Police Command’s hospital in Port Harcourt, obtained a doctor’s report and entered a case of torture and stealing against the youths of the community. He claimed that he had only visited his girl friend, who was pregnant for him, before the youths pounced on him and flogged him. He also claimed that the youths extorted N78,000 from him, and that he transferred the sum to the youth President, Owhondah Chamberlain.

The Police Public Relations Officer of the state Command, Grace Iringe-Koko, had corroborated the officer’s claims in a statement, noting that a case of assault and sealing was reported against the youths by the police officer serving in the Woji Area of Obio/Akpor LGA.

Iringe-Koko said that the officer had visited his pregnant girlfriend in the area and that the youths descended on him because their youth President had been interested in his lady. In a reprisal action, policemen invaded the community and arrested over 20 people.

The youths’ action

Troubled by the spike in drug activities and its attendant effects, the youths of the community had vowed to stamp out drug sale and purchase in the area, noting that the menace was threatening the future of their youths. The youths led by their Chairman, Comrade Owhondah Chamberlain, commenced a raid of all the areas where drug sellers and users met. In the course of their activities, the youths arrested three of the dealers and handed them to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA. The youths also closed down all the drug sale points in their community. The youths who were patrolling all the nooks and crannies of the community only flogged the drug users and let them go while the dealers who were caught were sent to the NDLEA for investigation and prosecution.

The Youth President of Nkpolu Community, Comrade Owhondah Chamberlain said that the devastating effect of drugs was alarming and it was something that they could no longer condone. Nkpolu youths therefore decided to work with the Law Enforcement Agency to flush out the drug dealers once and for all. Their campaign tagged, “Operation Say no to Drug”, affected both indigenes and non indigenes and since the youths started it, drug sales and use have stopped in the community. He noted that the NDLEA was in total support of what they were doing and even promised to fully support them.

NDLEA behind our resolve to stamp out drug activities——Youth president

He said: “By the grace of God, since we started the operation, there has been nothing like selling and taking of drugs in our community as we have shut down everywhere they were selling and taking the drugs and we will not rest in this action. They sell Cocaine, Colos, Thailand, Ice, Crystal White, Stone, Charlie and others. All these illicit drugs were sold here. Since we notified the NDLEA of what was happening here, they were fully in support of what we were doing. They promised us that they would ensure that the issue of drugs was eradicated in our community. Presently, we have three of the drug barons in their custody.

“We did not take laws into our hands, we want the government to take care of them. When we see a dealer, we send them to the NDLEA but when we get a user, we help them to stop drug abuse. After we had chased the drug sellers and the users from our community, we discovered that a man who later turned out to be a police officer, was taking drugs and gathered some people and told them to continue taking drugs that nothing would happen to them because he was a police officer. When we got to where six of them were taking the drugs, three of them ran away, but the police officer remained and told the other two not to run that he was a policeman. Because he was not wearing a uniform, we did not identify him as a policeman. Our interest was to sanitise the community of drug abuse. We cannot say that because he was a policeman we should allow him to continue encouraging people to take hard drugs.

“The police officer then vowed that he would mobilise his men and unleash terror on the community and arrest all the youths. The police should conduct a drug test on him, he is one of the officers denting the image of Nigeria Police. He had vowed that he would arrest all the youths including me. He also claimed that he sent N78,000 to me, the police should go to the bank and check my bank account to find out the truth. There was no such thing.

“It is also not true that I was interested in the girl that the police officer impregnated because the girl in question is my sister, so why would I compete with him over the girl. Moreover, the girl is under-aged, she is just 15 years old, she is not yet 18 years old recognised by the Nigerian constitution as an adult.

He is only looking for a defense to cover up his addiction, he is a drug addict. He is one of those tarnishing the image of Nigeria police. Whenever a drug user was arrested here, he would go there and push for settlement and release of the person.”

Our children are dropping out of school because of drug addiction – Elders

An elder in the community, Mr. Okechukwu Aka, regretted that some of their children who successfully gained admission into universities have dropped out because of drug addiction. Aka noted that some have sold their property less than its value because they craved for drugs, noting that many girls were into drugs.

Aka said: “Drug activities in our community have gone beyond the level that if we don’t take action with the collective effort of our youths things will go worse. We have now discovered that even our brothers and sons who gained admission into the universities could not graduate because of drug activities. Some of them have sold property like houses which their fathers left for them. The amount of money they collected in selling the property was far below the actual value, just because they wanted to take drugs. You would see them selling a property of N30m for just N3m because of drugs. So, our people resolved that we should no longer sit and watch our youths being destroyed. Women in drugs are even becoming more numerous than the boys. What we have done is to say “no more drugs”.

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