Lawal Muduru also known as Malam
Niga, owner of Niga’s Rehabilitation Centre, has accused northern state
governors of not being concerned about the future of the youth in the region.
Speaking with journalists in
Kaduna, Muduru said the governors in the region do not take the issue of drug
abuse among the youth seriously. He said their attitude is one of the reasons
the region is prone to crisis.
Nasir el-Rufai, governor of the
state, was on the premises when security operatives raided the centre where 147
inmates were rescued.
Some of the rescued persons were
found in chains at the facility. Among those rescued were 22 females and four
foreigners.
Muduru, who was released on bail
after his arrest, dismissed the report that the centre was a torture chamber.
He said well-known people in society bring their children to the centre to be
rehabilitated.
He said some of the inmates were
chained to prevent them from going violent owing to their issues with drug
abuse and mental illness.
He also said the state government
could not have claimed ignorance of the centre because the “ministry of youths
and sport and other government agencies sent mentally unstable people to the
centre for rehabilitation”.
“Still, last Saturday, the
governor came in a convoy of security men to my centre interrogating me why I
was chaining children and I explained to him that all I do is teach the inmates
trade,” he said.
“I showed them everything. I
explained that some inmates do run away from the centre and never return home
to meet their relatives and if they run away from the centre, the parents
confront me.
“I also explained that in most
cases, the inmates usually run into trouble once they are not within the
rehabilitation centre’s premises. Some may even lose their lives and the
relatives take me to court if I can’t provide their children.
“We all know that drug abuse is
prevalent in the north, and in Kano and Jigawa states alone, people consume
many bottles of codeine daily.
“What I observed is that in all
the 19 northern states in the country, none of the governors takes the issue of
drug abuse seriously. The future of the youth is of less concern to them and
that has been the reason we have so many restive youths and crises in the
north.”
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