. . . Says commissioner’s statement taken out of context

By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Anambra State Government has denied write-ups making the rounds that it is engaging traditional spiritualists to combat insecurity in the state.

A statement on Thursday morning by Christian Aburime, the Press Secretary to Governor Chukwuma Soludo, said that the Commissioner of Information, Sir Paul Nwosu’s press release was taken out of context.

He said: “What the State Government has said as explained by the Commissioner of Information, Sir Paul Nwosu, is that Anambra State Executive Council (ANSEC) has approved the registration of Traditional Medicine Practitioners and to categorize them under Herbalists and Spiritualists with a view to identifying those among them that support and protect criminals.

“The Commissioner in his statement to the press categorically stated: ‘Government has discovered that some native doctors provide charms with which gunmen operate and it has therefore become necessary to enumerate and register them as practitioners, categorised into Herbalists and Spiritualists’.

“The Commissioner further explained that ‘while government appreciates the fact that some of them add value to health care, it is also not unaware that some also have helped to imbue these criminals with the dare-devil confidence that has driven them into committing despicable crimes such as kidnapping, extortion of ransom, beheading, etc’.

“He added that after the registration exercise, where they are found culpable on such crimes it will be easy to fish them out from the register.

“From the foregoing, it is very clear that the government is taking this necessary step as part of its proactive and holistic efforts to curb insecurity in the state.”

Aburime maintained that the news making the rounds that the State Government has engaged the services of traditional spiritualists to fight insecurity is completely false and unfounded.

He stressed that while it is a general knowledge that government alone cannot fight insecurity, it is instructive to note that the story of engaging Traditional Spiritualists by Anambra State Government to fight insecurity is not true as being peddled by some mischief makers.

According to him, Governor Soludo will continue to do everything possible to ensure that sanity, peace, law and order is fully restored in Anambra State.

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