By Okereke Udoakpuenyi, YeyeNews.com, December 27, 2021
As part of his plans to resurrect the Anambra Integrated Development Strategy (ANIDS) of former Gov. Peter Obi, the incoming governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, will make it a priority to rehabilitate mkpuru mmiri addicts who are becoming a menace and a spectacle across Anambra State and on social media so to help every onye Anambra to be part of the coming transformation.
According to Prof. Soludo’s Special Assistant on Youth Development and Empowerment, Mr. Ifeanyi Okeke, who spoke to YeyeNews.com, resurrecting ANIDS, which is a developmental program that is grassroot-oriented and at the same time transforming and encompassing every sphere of human and capital development, would not yield the desired result if we did not turn back the current trend of mkpuru mmiri epidemic in Anambra State. “It is a scourge, and it is not abetting, even as communities take matters into their hands by meting out different forms of cruel and un-Igbo punishments’, he said.
Mr. Okeke told YeyeNews.com that Gov. Soludo administration would institute a training program instead of the “flogging program” being administered across the state by different town unions, vigilantes, and youth associations. He further said that the governor has started working already and that in November he did bring together Anambra technology experts from all over the world and in Nigeria by Zoom to design this program. The program will harness the abundant talents the incoming governor has seen in some of the addicts being flogged in the videos forwarded to his WhatsApp.
“Our governor sees potential in these people. They are resilient and strong-willed, long-suffering and patience. As they are being flogged, they are not crying but planning another location to get their fix. Anambra needs such people to channel those skills into something positive. Instead of Keke, Okada or buses, they will get laptops to learn programming because we are aware that it may take months to rehabilitate some of them and we don’t want accidents with Keke, Okada and buses being driven by these people. Let the accidents happen on computers”, he said.
YeyeNews.com visited different mkpuru mmiri hangouts in Anambra State to give them the good news and also to hear their views. At the back of Nnobi High School in Nnobi town, the addicts YeyeNews.com interviewed were so excited and hopeful that the program would help them turn their lives around. One Mr. Onyeka Ilomuanya who said he could not vote on November 6 because he slept from 3am to 11:35pm that Saturday apologized to and thanked the incoming governor. He said he would like to use the laptop the governor would give him to write a computer program that would close all the erosion sites in Nnobi town and in Anambra State. He said he dreamed about that yesterday.
At another mkpuru mmiri site near Afor-Igwe Ogidi market in Ogidi town, Mr. Israel Azota was grateful to God for touching the hearts of IPOB leaders to allow the election making it possible for Prof. Soludo to win. He said he would form an association of mkpuru mmiru users to bring all members together to support the governor and also to participate in the training program. YeyeNews.com correspondent told him that it could turn out bad as Ogidi Youths Association might descend on them but Mr. Azota rolled his eyes and told the reporter: “Romans 8:31 says ‘If President Soludo is for us, who can be against us?'”. The reporter checked the Bible online and told Mr. Azota that it said ‘If God is for us’ not President Soludo and that Soludo is governor not president but he dismissed the reporter and told him to go and get Anambra bible written by Chinua Achebe.
