By Harun Mugambi
In a bold move that has sent shockwaves among Muguka traders across the county, Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir has issued an executive order banning the sale, supply, and consumption of Muguka.
Governor Nassir ordered the closure of all retail and wholesale outlets selling Muguka in Mombasa County with immediate effect.
The first directive decreed that “there will be a total prohibition on the entry, transportation, distribution, sale, and use of Muguka and its products within Mombasa County.”
“All outlets, whether in the form of retail or wholesale, selling and or/distributing Muguka within Mombasa County be Closed immediately and/or stop the sale of Muguka and its products,” the second directive emphasized.
The governor’s decision highlights the widespread consumption of the stimulant drug at the Coast, including among school-going children.
Nassir noted that despite regulations put in place to safeguard children from the drug’s influence, Muguka traders have continued to sell the stimulant to minors.
“We have tried to come up with regulations so that users and the larger community can co-exist, but they have refused. For this reason, I have consulted legally, and it is found to be in order,” Nassir said on Thursday 23, in a presser at Port Reitz Hospital in Mombasa.
“The caffeine and cathinone content in the plant called Muguka is a very high level, an average of about twenty leaves are enough to start making someone start having toxic imaginations,” the Governor vehemently maintained his stance.
The relevant county departments have been directed to enforce this order without exception.
The decision was made in consultation with the National Authority for the Campaign against Drug Abuse (NACADA). GVN Nassir observed that scientific studies on the use of Muguka have established that it caused mental health disease and disability.
His decision has faced resistance from political leaders in Meru and Embu, who attempted to dissuade Nassir from banning the Miraa and Muguka trade in Mombasa or enforcing punitive levies approved by the county assembly.
In recent weeks, Embu Governor Cecily Mbarire, Meru Senator Kathuri Murungi, and Deputy Governor Mutuma M’ethingia met with Nassir to defend the trade of these stimulants.
However, Nassir maintains that the health, social, economic, and environmental consequences of Muguka consumption, which places burdens on minors, families, the poor, and county health systems, take precedence over any commercial or business interest.
This move comes after Muslim Clerics from Rift Valley called on their respective counties’ leadership to embrace the ban on Miraa and Muguka as their counterpart in Mombasa.
