The Medical Director, Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Prof. Azubuike Onyebuchi, has urged the Police Campaign Against Cultism and Other Vices (POCACOV) to intensify its advocacy campaign against cultism,
to discourage drug abuse and other social vices in the country.
Onyebuchi receiving Abia chapter of POCACOV on a courtesy and advocacy visit in his office, decried the negative impact of cultism, criminality, substance and drug abuse and other societal ills on the economy.
The director urged the group to collaborate with the relevant stakeholders, including the youth wing of different town unions, churches and schools, to mitigate the menace.
According to him, you can also collaborate with our Psychiatry Department to help strategise on how to mitigate against substance and drug abuse.
“If you can reduce substance abuse and excesses of some of these harmful drugs, that will help you to achieve your aim in this campaign,” he said.
He congratulated the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, on the initiative, saying that it would help to curb societal vices.
The FMC boss pledged unalloyed support for the group, saying, “Whatever I can do to support this advocacy that will ensure our youths get it right, I will always be available.”
The Abia Chairman of POCACOV, Mrs Adanma Odefa-Wachuku, who led the delegation, described the organisation as “an emergency intervention to a terrible situation that has arisen in the society”.
Odefa-Wachuku said, “Ours is not a punitive but an advocacy organisation that wants to convince people to stop cultism and other vices and be productive to society.”
She said that one of the group’s focus was the mothers “because we believe that somewhere, the family values have been eroded”.
She said that the group was faced with the immediate task of dissuading the youths from being used as cultists and thugs by some politicians and other criminal elements to disrupt the General Elections.