Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Gabriel Osa
Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Soludo has moved to justify his administration’s controversial crackdown on what he calls “criminal native doctors,” insisting the campaign is aimed at fraud, ritual-linked criminality, and the social normalization of wealth-without-work narratives, rather than at traditional religion itself. Speaking during a media engagement in Awka, Soludo argued that the state cannot allow spiritual or ritual claims to be used as cover for criminal conduct, especially where such claims are tied to kidnapping, ritual practices, “Yahoo Plus,” fake bulletproof charms, and the broader culture of quick enrichment. He said the government’s concern is not authentic traditional healing or worship, but operators who “deceive” young people and aid violent crime.
That distinction is central to the state’s defence of a crackdown that has become one of the most contentious security and cultural issues in Anambra over the past year. The legal basis of the campaign is the Anambra State Homeland Security Law 2025, signed by Soludo in January 2025. According to reporting on the law and its enforcement, it created the Agunechemba vigilante structure and was launched alongside Operation Udo Ga-Achi. It specifically criminalised the making of charms for the commission of crime, outlawed certain roadside ritual practices, and targeted “Oke-Ite” and related supernatural wealth claims. Reports on the law say offenders risk prison terms, fines, or both, with some accounts describing penalties of six years’ imprisonment and fines up to ₦20 million, while others say some offences can attract heavier terms depending on the conduct involved.
The current controversy gained fresh momentum this month after security operatives arrested another native doctor in Nnewi, identified in reports as John Ezenagu, also known as “Mmou Mmili Afulu Anya.” State officials alleged that he lured young men and women with promises of instant wealth tied to bathing in a stream behind his residence, conduct they said violated the Homeland Security Law. He was paraded by the state-backed Agunechemba outfit, and officials said he would be handed to the police for further investigation and possible prosecution if found culpable. The arrest was used by the government to reinforce its argument that what is being targeted is not faith or culture, but manipulative schemes that prey on desperation and feed criminality.
Soludo’s wider justification rests on a claim that these practices are not merely fraudulent but socially dangerous. In remarks reported this week, he said some native doctors and even some clerics promote the idea that people can become rich without labour, discipline, or enterprise. That, in his framing, is not harmless superstition but part of the moral infrastructure of crime, because it conditions young people to seek magical shortcuts to wealth and makes them vulnerable to ritual schemes, fraud networks, and violent criminal groups. The state has argued for months that some native doctors help prepare charms for kidnappers and other offenders, and Anambra Information Commissioner Law Mefor said in April 2025 that the security architecture was specifically designed to confront kidnapping, armed robbery, “Yahoo Plus,” fake pastors, and what he called “malevolent native doctors.”
The government also points to earlier enforcement actions as evidence that the crackdown is not rhetorical. Reports from 2025 and 2026 say several high-profile native doctors were arrested following the law’s introduction, including Chukwudozie Nwangwu, Onyebuchi Okocha, and Ekene Igboekweze. Channels reported this month that Nwangwu was later sentenced to 11 months in prison and that his shrine in Oba was demolished after a court order. PUNCH also reported in February that the shrine of a convicted native doctor was demolished, tying the case directly to the state’s effort to dismantle ritual sites linked to criminality after judicial proceedings. These earlier arrests and convictions helped transform what began as a political declaration into an institutional campaign with arrests, prosecutions, demolitions, and continuing surveillance.
The state has repeatedly denied that the law outlaws traditional worship. At a February 10, 2025 meeting, the Anambra executive council said the Homeland Security Law was being misrepresented by critics and was not aimed at traditional religion. Commissioner Mefor said traditional religion remains a legitimate part of Igbo culture, while the law was designed to confront “quacks and evil native doctors” who corrupt cultural values, glorify wealth without work, and mislead the younger generation. That line has remained the official state position: no ban on tradition, but a ban on criminal uses of ritual authority. Soludo echoed that position again in the latest defence, saying genuine traditional medicine and God-centred or humanity-centred practices are not the target of his government’s action.
But the policy has not escaped serious criticism. Rights advocates and some religious voices argue that the crackdown has often blurred the line between criminal enforcement and religious persecution. In April 2025, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law said more than 40 native doctors had been detained and accused the state of violating due process, illegally holding traditional worshippers, and publicly humiliating them before any court determination. The group argued that many of those detained had “no case to answer” and framed the campaign as an assault on freedom of religion. More recently, a Catholic priest interviewed by PUNCH described Soludo’s posture toward traditional religion as a witch-hunt and warned against state overreach in a constitutionally secular order. Those criticisms do not disprove the government’s security concerns, but they highlight a legal and civil-liberties problem at the centre of the crackdown: whether the state has consistently separated evidence-based criminal investigation from moral panic and public spectacle.
That tension is why the Soludo policy remains politically potent. Supporters see it as overdue social discipline in a state battered by kidnapping, cult violence, ritualized fraud, and the symbolic economy of “money rituals.” Critics see a dangerous precedent in which the state polices belief through broad security language. The strongest factual ground beneath Soludo’s position is that the Homeland Security Law is real, its enforcement has already produced arrests and at least one reported conviction, and the government has consistently said its focus is criminal enablement rather than worship. The weakest part of the government’s case lies in unresolved concerns about detention practices, evidentiary transparency, and whether public parading of suspects risks collapsing accusation into guilt before trial.
What Soludo has now done is shift the debate from whether the crackdown exists to why he believes it is necessary. His answer is blunt: Anambra, in his view, is confronting not just armed criminals but the cultural machinery that feeds them. Whether that argument holds legally and morally will depend less on rhetoric than on prosecution standards, courtroom evidence, and the government’s ability to prove that the men it calls “criminal native doctors” are in fact criminal actors, not simply unpopular custodians of a contested tradition.
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