BY BENSON OKOBI-ALLANAH
IRKED by the way drug-addicts have taken over the streets in many parts of the country, an education psychologist and retired principal, Mr. Thomas Chimekwele Ijegbulem from Owa kingdom in Ika North East Local Government Area of Delta State has called on officials of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to relocate from its present site at Ogwashi to inside Asaba, the Delta State capital.
‘A good number of these drug addicts and drug barons they patronize’, he says unequivocally, ‘are at found at various places and communities in Asaba, such as at Allen, Umuekwo, Odikpe, Umunkwo, Ogbeofu in Cable Point area, Jarret –End also at Cable Point, Otu-Ogu near the popular Ogbeogonogo Modern Market, Akuofu close to Akwuebulu, Akuose, the old Toll Gate, Asaba end of the Niger Bridge, Oko Market, Basket Market, Achalla-Igbuzor Road axis and several other places in the city of Asaba. I have lived in Asaba for over four decades now, even before it became the state capital. If these men of NDLEA is close to them, just as we say in Economics ‘nearest to the source of raw materials’ I believe the flooding of Asaba by these drug-addicts turned lunatics, will be reduced drastically.’
Pa Ijegbulem says each time he passes any of these afore-mentioned places in Asaba, and see how drugs are being abused and freely taken by these druggists unchallenged, he begins to wonder if there is presence of NDLEA personnel and other law-enforcement agents in Asaba.
He decried the nuisance they pose on the streets of the state capital and some of its suburbs. Most of them, he says, no longer behave like normal human beings. They put on rags in the name of clothes, sag their trousers and boxers to their knees, with hair looking disheavelled and very unkempt. He says when they become hungry and not getting anything to eat, they start fermenting trouble, molesting and harassing passersby, especially the female folk.
The elderstatesman said rather than keep these officials who are supposed to be raiding their hide-outs on daily basis far from them (the druggists), until the war on them are achieved, that another location in the city should be provided for the NDLEA officials to enable them keep an eagle eye on them, saying that the old NITEL building wasting away on Dennis Osadebay Way, could be used as rehabilitation center and new headquarters of the NDLEA in Asaba where these drug addicts and drug barons are far more in number than in other places in the state. Ijegbulem said he once had some chats with a senior official of the NDLEA who told him they had made several presentations to the state government who promised them the issue for a new location in the state capital would soon be addressed as their case was a very genuine one.
In the discussions he had with the officials, he said, he came to realize that logistic problems moving from their present base to the city was one of their major encumberances, saying they lack vehicles with which to carry out effective combing of the places mentioned, aside not having their command’s headquarters in the city they are supposed to be quartered like other security agencies.
