Leave Tonto Dike, Go After Drug Barons – HURIWA Tells NDLEA

A non-governmental organization, Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) has reacted to the controversy trailing an alleged marijuana picture posted online by popular actress, Tonto Dike.

The actress had posted the picture on the social media, an act which drew the attention of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

Its spokesman Mr. Mitchell Ofoyeju, in his reaction had said that “The law is clear and NDLEA has been very clear on the issue. No one is permitted to sell, use, cultivate or encourage the use of Indian hemp in Nigeria. The substance is one of the banned narcotics in the country.”

In a statement jointly issued by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and National media Director, Miss. Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said the anti-drug agency was “chasing shadows by threatening to arrest a Nigerian citizen whose alleged ‘marijuana photograph’ does not constitute hard core judicial evidence but rather a social media contraption that may never stand credibility test in the competent court of law.”

HURIWA urged NDLEA not to waste taxpayers’ fund in pursuing a matter that is substantially irrelevant and lacks proof.

The Rights group tasked the agency to instead extend its dragnet and arrest high profile drug barons and peddlers rather than engage in ‘meaningless voyage of discovery’ and ‘attention seeking’ in the media which the Rights group described as ‘witch- hunting’ and an elaborate attempt to undermine the fundamental freedoms of the actress- Miss Tonto Dike who is now being framed up with a trumped up charge of posting ‘marijuana photograph’ on the social media.

It advised the NDLEA to concentrate on how to repair its public image damaged by the costly mistake it made during the arrest, detention and investigation of the popular Yoruba comedian Baba Suwe (the popular expensive faecis/excreta gamble by the NDLEA).”