Curbing cultism in institutions of higher learning

ON Tuesday, students of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo State, staged a protest against the killing of an ex-student, Mr Ahmed Olalekan, also known as Maku, by suspected cultists. Olalekan, a member of the Students Forum, an anti-cultism group comprising current and former students of the school, was said to have been killed on Monday night by cultists who stormed his apartment in the Apete area of Ibadan and shot him at close range.

Apparently, to ensure that he was truly dead, the cultists reportedly inflicted several cuts on his neck with an axe before leaving the apartment. According to members of the Students Forum, the slain ex-student, a graduate of Urban and Regional Planning, was actively involved in the fight against cultism, drawing the ire of members of the Aye confraternity. Public Relations Officer of the forum, Adeyemi Ridwan, who said he was one of the last persons that saw the victim before his death, claimed that the cultists had been threatening to strike for more than two weeks and that the school authorities allegedly failed to act on the information.

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It will be recalled that last week, the management of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, suspended six students of the institution for alleged secret cult membership. According to the Public Relations Officer of the university, Mr Abiodun Olanrewaju, the university authorities got an intelligence information on July 2 that two students of the institution had been forcefully initiated into a secret cult outside the campus. Determined to unravel the crime, the university’s security unit began a preliminary investigation and arrested 12 students in connection with the crime. The students were handed over to the Osun State Police Command for a more professional investigation.

In the process, six of the students admitted to being members of the cult and were consequently suspended, pending the outcome of investigations by the Students Disciplinary Committee. A special release signed by the Registrar of the university, Mrs Magaret Omosule, indicated that on August 20, the university received a detailed report from the police which confirmed that the students, namely Onyekwusi Praise Chinemerem, Ojo Abiodun Olamide, Ude John, Oladoye Tobi Olakunmi and Ayeyi Damilola Ayomide, had admitted their membership of proscribed groups, thus breaching their matriculation oath, code of conduct and other pertinent university regulations.

It is indeed saddening that the spectre of cultism in the country’s institutions of higher learning has failed to abate despite the efforts by stakeholders, including the management of the institutions, the student unions and the security agencies, to tame it. Beyond giving those involved in it a false sense of power and superiority, secret cultism has never been proved to confer any real benefits on the students who partake in it in the country’s universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. On the contrary, it has always fostered a climate of fear and insecurity and left in its wake tales of sorrow, tears and blood.

Many innocent students have been killed by cult groups within the institutions and many have been maimed, their lives shattered irreparably. In this regard, the cult attack and killing of Mr Olalekan must be thoroughly investigated by the police, with the active support of the management of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, and the perpetrators brought to book.

Similarly, we urge the authorities of OAU to treat the case of the suspended students with utmost seriousness and ensure that justice is done in the matter. Cultism bodes no good and must not be allowed to fester in the country’s higher institutions. Indeed, it was only last month that students of the OAU marked the 19th anniversary of the cult attack in which five students were murdered in cold blood.

The attack, carried out in the early hours of Saturday, July 10, 1999, led to the death of a 21-year-old 400-level law student and then Secretary-General of the Student Union, George Iwilade, fondly called Afrika. Others killed in the attack were Eviano Ekeimu, Yemi Ajiteru, Babatunde Oke and Godfrey Ekpede. They were shot dead in Blocks 5 and 8 of the Awolowo Hall of the university allegedly by members of Black Axe confraternity. Nineteen years on, the killers are yet to be prosecuted.

As part of the anti-cultism measures in the country’s higher institutions, their management must allow student unionism to thrive. Where members of the school managements go out of their way to suppress legitimate demands by the students, they would only be creating an avenue for cultism and allied vices to burgeon. In the same vein, we urge the various student unions to clean up their act, engage issues scientifically, dispassionately and with decorum, and resist any temptation to embrace violence as a means of resolving disputes.

It is when school management and student unions work in harmony that the resurgence of cultism in any form can be crushed. In the same vein, we urge parents, religious institutions and other organs of the society and the state to strive to inculcate the right values in the youths, particularly the students who constitute an integral part of the country’s future.