25th March, 2018
As cult-related killings and violence continue to rise, stakeholders in the criminal justice administration sector have identified the reasons for the development and suggested solutions to the menace.
They spoke to newsmen in separate interviews conducted in the South-West states.
An Ibadan-based Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Richard Ogunwole, said the rising wave of cultism could be attributed to the fact that Nigerians flouted the rule of law with impunity.
According to him, law and order have broken down and people no longer respect the law because of the malaise of “godfatherism.’’
He decried the situation where those caught in acts of cultism often escaped justice, warning that the menace would persist until offenders were made to face the full wrath of the law.
According to the SAN, the court is helpless as it can only work with the evidence brought before it for prosecution by law enforcement agencies.
“The law enforcement agents sometimes bring the wrong people to court and at the end of the day, the court would have no option than to release the innocent.
“The court believes it is better to release 99 suspected criminals than to convict one innocent person; so don’t blame the court at all.
“Nigeria’s criminal laws are very strong but not properly enforced in such a way that culprits will find it difficult to go scot-free,’’ Ogunwole said.
Dr Peter Olapegba, a lecturer in the Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, attributed the increase in cult activities to poverty, lack of parental care and the inability of higher institutions to provide accommodation for students within the campus.
Olapegba recalled that cult activities in the past used to be a school-based phenomenon, with many institutions of higher learning and government confronting it and running it underground.
“Right now, schools don’t have much of cult activities and violent cult activities are now community-based because there are structures in schools to identify and fish them out which is not found in the community.
“Increase in enrolment of students into higher institutions and the inability of the institutions to cater for the accommodation of these children lead most of them to live off campus.
“The school authority cannot see what they are doing outside of the school environment, leading to a resurgence of cult activities in the community.
“Those who are involved in cultism are not just recruiting student members but also recruiting members of the community into their group and rather than having violence in the schools, violence takes place in the communities and becomes very difficult to control.
“The problem is that most institutions have students off campus than on campus and this leads to increase in cult activities,’’ the psychologist said.
Olapegba also said the society appeared to be promoting anti-social behaviour because militants bearing different funny names were being rewarded by some government organs.
He added that the inability to police the society and the broken-down societal values were all contributing to upsurge in cult activities.
“We need to revisit our value system and school system because these cult groups can actually reach more people in the community than in the school and this has made it more dangerous for the country.
“Families should start teaching their children important values that would make them better in the society.
“Government should give access to education so that nobody would have the excuse of not being educated to perpetrate crime.
“It should also step up security in the society so that the chances of getting away with crime would be difficult,’’ Olapegba said.
An Islamic cleric, Sheikh Imrah Sakariyah, however, blamed cultism on the lukewarm attitude of some Nigerians to the tenets of their religion.
Sakariyah said that both Islamic and Christian clerics do their bit by always reminding adherents of the implications of their acts, but noted that the choice to do what was right was personal.
In Ogun, however, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) blamed the rising wave of cultism in many parts of the country on the decline in moral values and weakness on the part of law enforcement agencies.
In an interview, the Secretary of the state branch of CAN, Mr Tolulope Taiwo, described cultism as an act condemned and forbidden by God.
Taiwo expressed concern that the menace, hitherto only observed in tertiary institutions, had spread to primary and secondary schools.
He dismissed claims that the trend amounted to the failure of religious bodies, saying that CAN had continued to preach against the menace in churches while organising seminars and establishing Christian fellowships in tertiary institutions.
Taiwo, however, noted with concern that fellowship days and periods during which the fear of God was instilled in the hearts of primary and secondary schools students were no longer observed.
The cleric also noted that some of the subjects which taught ethics and moral values in the schools had been dropped.
“Until government awakes to its responsibility and allows the teaching of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK), Islamic Religious Knowledge (IRK) and Social Studies, cult activities will continue in spite of efforts at fighting it,’’ he said.
Omirin Babatunde, a legal practitioner, said that there were sufficient laws prohibiting activities of cult groups such as the Ogun State Secret Cult Prohibition Act but he expressed concern over the ‘weakness’ in the enforcement of the laws.
According to him, law enforcement agencies do not have adequate resources to effectively tackle the menace.
The lawyer also observed that many of the cases instituted against members of cult groups had failed due to lack of proper investigations before prosecution.
The spokesperson of the police in the state, Mr Abimbola Oyeyemi, noted that most cult groups were dominated by youths.
According to Abimbola, the membership of the cult groups has grown beyond students in schools and has extended to youths in various vocations.
He explained that the youths were lured into such groups through false promise of protection and materialism.
Abimbola also blamed the trend on poor parenting, peer pressure, a decline in societal moral values and the get-rich-quick syndrome, among others.
He said that with the achievements recorded by the police, the activities of cult groups had drastically reduced in the state.
In Ekiti, the state government, which recently promulgated a law prescribing death sentence for cultism, expressed dismay at the resurgence of the menace in the state.
The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr Idowu Adelusi, said the law had come to stay.
The state, which had witnessed a lull in cult activities in the past seven years, recently recorded incidents of cult violence.
It would be recalled that in August 2017, suspected cultists invaded Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, killing three persons.
Also in October 2017, another undergraduate, Temilade Ayodele, was hacked to death by suspected cultists, with another killed two weeks later.
To check the upsurge, the institution’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Samuel Oye-Bandele, offered amnesty to all repentant cultists.
“It is not our intention to punish those who reconsider their ways and voluntarily renounce membership of such groups because the Bible itself says God does not want the death of a sinner but for him to repent and change his old ways,’’ Oye-bandele said.
The Commissioner for Information, Mr Lanre Ogunsuyi, said that the embarrassment caused the state by the sudden outbreak of cult violence, made the governor to take a decisive step to curb the menace by sponsoring the anti-cult bill to the State Assembly.
“The governor also followed-up by giving out three dedicated emergency lines through which residents can call to alert on any case of security breach.
“The three phone numbers are 09030002151, 09030002161 and 08062336577,” he said.
In Ilorin, Mr Abdulkadir Uthman, the Chairman of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Kwara chapter, expressed worry that while cultism had reduced greatly among students of higher institutions it had spread to the larger community.
He said NANS had partnered an NGO, “Zero Tolerance to Social Unrest,’’ to promote peace on campuses in the state.
But Mr Kamaldeen Fagbemi, the Chairman, Kwara House of Assembly Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Judiciary, advocated a constitution review to curb cultism in the country.
Fagbemi also called for a re-orientation of the value system and sensitisation of the society to the dangers inherent in belonging to any cult or secret societies.
Similarly, a Professor of Islamic Studies, Badmus Lanre-Yusuf, called for sound religious training for children and a review of the curriculum in the nation’s education system.
According to him, the new curriculum must lay emphasis on the proper moral upbringing that will discourage children from belonging to any clandestine group.
An Ilorin-based legal practitioner, Mr Yusuf Akanni, blamed politicians for the increase in cult-related activities in the country, accusing them of sponsoring cult members to intimidate their opponents.
Mrs Funke Olubiyo, a teacher, said peer group influence was a major factor that lured unsuspecting youths to join cult associations.
Olubiyo advised youths to be wary of those they associate with in order not to fall into bad company.
Dr Oludele Ajani, a lecturer in the Sociology and Anthropology Department, Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU), Ile-Ife, also blamed peer group, poverty, unemployment, indiscipline, lack of contentment and laziness for youth involvement in cultism.
Ajani advised that parents should monitor the activities of their children, adding that bad parenting was also contributing to youth involvement in cultism.
He also urged parents to give their children adequate attention and care.
A civil rights activist, Mr Kehinde Daramola, identified lack of proper upbringing as the reason some youths join cult groups.
Daramola said many parents today do not create time to speak with their children on issues bordering on sex education and negative effects of peer groups.
Also speaking, Mr Gbenga Abimbola, a lecturer in Mass Communications at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, said the underlying factor responsible for cultism was poor parental upbringing.
He said if the development of a child was not properly monitored by the parents, the child could be easily influenced negatively.
“Children need good examples from the parents or they can be easily led astray. Beyond that, some parents are cultists themselves and have initiated their children right from childhood.
“Peer influence is also a factor because some children actually come from good homes but due to interactions with peers, they end up as cultists,” he said.
Abimbola further explained that campuses or schools were also endangered, whether resident or not, as a lot of cult activities usually took place on campuses.
“Some innocent people are affected this way, but beyond that, some people are just wicked and want to get engaged in wicked, dastardly acts.
“The government itself is another factor. Take politicians as examples, some of them don’t believe they can get money without rituals or being involved in cultism,” he said.
For George Igalo, a security expert, students often gave all sorts of reasons as to why they joined secret societies.
Igalo said some of the reasons included frustration with pressure by lecturers and classmates, vengeance, retaliation, peer pressure and poor academic performance, among others.
He said that such reasons could not be compared with the destruction of lives and property in the advent of clashes between rival groups.
Mrs Mary Olayemi, a counsellor, identified broken homes as one of the major reasons the youths engaged in cultism, adding that parents needed to keep their homes intact.
“For me, if the family plays its fundamental role, the society will be a better place for us all and the government will have less crime to fight.
“Government cannot end cultism. But its membership cum activities can be reduced by engaging youths positively, changing their orientation against the mindset that `might is right’ and violence is the fastest way to make it in life.’’
Mr Sunday Bamidele, a sociologist, attributed the incidence of cultism to the overbearing attitude of parents.
Bamidele said the moment such youth got freedom from their parents they became reckless and unreasonable, explaining that the sudden access to freedom often disposed them to cultism.
The sociologist also said the society itself was one of the multifaceted reasons cultism had not abated.
“Some people have seen cultism as a profiteering game. Some graduates without jobs or idle youths also believe that they can engage in cultism to make money.
“The level of moral decadence is getting worse. Even right from home, parents are no longer interested in controlling their children.
“We have so much imbibed western culture that the societal ethics had been destroyed,” he said.
Dr Wale Lawal, a lecturer on foreign policy at the Lagos State University (LASU), decried the negative twist confraternities had taken in Nigerian campuses and urged the government to take stringent measures to curb the menace.
Lawal identified the notorious cult groups in Nigerian campuses as Eiye, Black Axe, Vikings, Back Beret, Black Bra, Amazons, among others.
“Campus confraternity began in Nigeria in 1952 with the formation of Pirates, which was mainly a pressure group to lobby and agitate for certain conditions on campus.
“It is sad that over the decades, we have witnessed a multiplicity of these cult groups, most of which now promote violent crimes, including murder.
“Government should initiate strict sanctions to discourage students from getting involved in cultism,” Lawal said.
He advised parents to play more active roles in monitoring their children in universities and the friend they kept as peer pressure was a strong factor in membership drive of cult groups.
“Parents should take more practical steps to improve the moral education of their wards; that basic high moral foundation will go a long way to curtail their excesses,’’ he said.
He said that most of the cults now operated outside the campuses and were involved in societal ills such as drugs abuse, armed robbery, kidnapping and rape.
A Professor of Sociology, University of Lagos, Lai Olurode, identified insecurity and weak ethical foundation as some of the factors responsible for the increased rate of cultism in the country.
Olurode told NAN that the quest for social security, especially by the youth gave rise to the increased membership of various cultism groups in the country.
“There are some salient issues that must be understood.
“In the 1980s, the universities used to be seen as the haven for cultism in the country, but all that seemed to have been checkmated, though not completely eliminated.
“Today, cultism has taken a new dimension in the society.
“When we look at the society holistically, together with the family and of course the school, which is the secondary agent of socialisation after the family, we can begin to see why things are the way they are,’’ Olurode said.
He noted that lack of care for the masses and absence of basic social security in the country had driven the society into finding a way out of their challenges.
“People yearn for better lives; look at our schools, fallen walls, blown roofs and teachers lamentation.
“All these are pointers to the fact that there is no guarantee of the future and no security whatsoever.
“So, the people now feel they should take their fate in their hands, as they see the society in total decay and not prepared to take the yearnings of the younger generation seriously.
“All these are some of the reasons some people are withdrawn to their shell and try to seek help from another means,’’ he said.
Olurode also blamed some parents for failure to discharge parental obligations, including discipline of younger members of the family.
“Some children grow up literally on the streets and without civility.
“Neighbours are also indifferent as their interference can be rudely rebuffed,’’ he said.
The don, therefore, appealed to governments at all levels to re-order their priority by showing positive signals and care to members of the society, especially the youth.
Jude Ibekwe, a student of the University of Lagos, advised students to always take academics as a priority and shun bad company.
“Some of these new students do not know what they are getting into when they get initiated into cultism, either through deceit or intimidation.
“Parents should always counsel their children to shun bad company and face their academics to avoid being lured into cultism,’’ he advised.