Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has issued a two-week ultimatum for security apparatus at the Coast to wipe out the drug cartels in the region.
Gachagua on Monday said the Coast is being destroyed by drug barons who have infiltrated the security apparatus, and as a result have free reign on the region.
“This Coast is full of drugs which have hurt our children. The drugs are sold as chiefs, police and government officers watch. We have come to fight drugs,” Gachagua warned.
He spoke during the commissioning of 12 classrooms at the Frere Town Primary School built by the Nyali NG-CDF.
Nyali MP Mohammed Ali said the drugs menace in Mombasa is affecting children who are increasingly becoming zombies.
He raised concern about the rehabilitation centre and clinic next to Frere Town Primary School, saying it is negatively affecting the pupils.
“This clinic here has to be to be moved. When children are learning inside, bhang and cocaine is being smoked right outside.
“Today I have come with the medicine to cure this. We need this clinic to go,” Ali said.
More than 100 drug addicts show up at the rehabilitation centre where they are given small doses of the drugs they are addicted to in a bid to gradually reduce their intake and eventually make them stop being dependent on them.
Kadzandani MCA Fatma Kushe said the drug problem has also affected residents in her ward, who are showing peculiar behaviours.
“We are now seeing men going with men and women going with women. I don’t know if this is a result of the drugs they are using,” Kushe said.
She said Kadzandani has become the ‘Sin City’ of Nyali subcounty and something must be done about it.
DP Gachagua accused security officers of sleeping on the job saying there will be no more transfers of those who are found to have aided or abetted the drugs trade either by omission or commission.
“As government, we have issued strict orders. No chief will live in one location with drugs. One must go. Either the chief will go, or the drugs will,” he said.
“Drugs have no brain to decide whether to leave or not. So the only person with brains to decipher right from wrong will be the one to go.”
He said police officers who are found culpable will no longer be transferred as has been happening in the past.
“That will be transferring a problem from one place to another. Any police officer who cannot work will go home,” Gachagua said.
“The Regional coordinator and your team, you have two weeks to arrest the drug barons and have them prosecuted. We cannot allow a few tycoons to harm our children,” Gachagua said.
He said the government has given the police all resources and they have no excuse not to work.
“If they cannot, let them tell us. We will not allow drugs anymore. Our officers have become lazy and have slept on the job. We cannot accept that situation again.
“We must protect our children because they are our future. If we allow it, we will not have a country anymore,” Gachagua said.
He said he will be back in Mombasa in two weeks to check on the progress of the anti-drugs war.
“If it means camping here, I will camp here. We cannot allow drugs to be sold openly with chiefs and police watching without doing anything,” he said.
