The rise in cultism cases in schools

RECENTLY, there was unease at the Usmanu Dan Fodio University, Sokoto (UDUS), Sokoto State, as students and staff of the institution detected strange signs in strategic locations within the campus, sparking fear of impending cult-related attacks. The signs, including bent crosses and arrowheads painted with red ink, were reportedly posted on walls and boards around the campus. Although the university’s management denied any linkage between the signs and secret cultism, saying it had investigated all the logos and signs of secret cults in the country and found none with such identity, the development reportedly forced students to shelve overnight reading at lecture halls.

Even if the incident at UDUS has no linkage with cultism, it is still a fact that the spectre of cultism in schools across primary, secondary and tertiary levels remains worrisome. Last week, Victor Oke, a final year student of political science at the Osun State University, was reportedly shot, attacked with machetes  and set ablaze by suspected cultists who left him for dead. His offence was refusing to join a cult group. Luckily, however, he was eventually rescued and taken to hospital. In a statement confirming the incident, the university’s Public Relations Officer, Ademola Adesoji, said that the victim kept announcing his resolve as the suspected cultists descended on  him with cutlasses and stones before setting him alight. He added that the university’s security unit was working with the police to ensure that the culprits were unmasked and brought to book. Oke’s ordeal recalls the  case of 12-year-old Sylvester Oromoni, who was allegedly beaten to death at Dowen College, Lagos State, for refusing to join a cult.

To say the least, the menace of cultism in schools is a continuing source of worry. We recall that while receiving a total of 139 youths who renounced their membership of various cult groups and surrendered the arms and ammunition in their possession in March 2018, the then Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Imohimi Edgal, had urged the then Lagos State governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, to declare a state of emergency on cultism, saying that the practice of initiating children in primary schools was worrisome. In 2019, the state police command apprehended two individuals for initiating 12 students of primary and secondary schools in the Igando area of the state into cultism. In March 2020, the Akwa Ibom State government proscribed 51 cult groups and societies in secondary schools in the state following cult-related unrest in schools. And only in November this year, a Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Mr. Ignatius Alimeke and three students were reportedly injured during clashes involving rival cult groups operating in two public secondary schools in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.

If recent developments illustrate anything, it is the fact that the ugly phenomenon of cultism in schools may become a permanent feature of life in those schools if urgent steps are not taken to root it out. If young and impressionable pupils are being initiated into cult groups in primary schools, it is not difficult to see that, ceteris paribus, such recruits would easily become a menace in secondary schools and outright terror in polytechnics, colleges of education and universities where they would make life difficult for fellow students and shed blood at will. If cultism is thriving in schools, no one needs a soothsayer to realise that this is happening because the system permits it. As a Nigerian proverb says, if a person who is unwanted in the town initiates a song, who would sing along with him or her? If the brains behind cultism in schools at whatever level are made to face the wrath of the law, they will cease and desist from their pernicious activities.  In climes such as Saudi Arabia, Singapore and China where recompense for crime is swift and assured, no one teaches anyone to sit up and behave.

Time and again, we have drawn attention to the fact that cultism and related vices are directly traceable to broken homes. In a situation where the family system has become bastardised and where discipline has broken down, it is futile to expect well-behaved young people. If the foundation of the socialisation process is broken, there is very little that other agents of socialisation such as schools can do. Given the foregoing, governments at all levels need to embrace and propagate policies that promote family values. Indeed, the society as a whole must embrace conversations that aim to rediscover and promote such values if only because, as yet another proverb says, a child that is not properly built up (that is, well trained) is the same person who would auction off the house that his/her parents built with a lot of toil, apparently without batting an eyelid. The collapse of the family system is indeed one of the worst calamities that have befallen the country. Most parents have abdicated their responsibilities: they behave like adults in diapers.

If homes have broken down, so have schools, and it is no surprise that many a teacher has been failing in his/her duties.  In any case, the situation has become so bad that teachers who try to instill any form of discipline, particularly in secondary schools, risk the wrath of their students and, rather sadly, the parents of those students. Cases of parents invading schools with thugs to beat up “erring” teachers are routine. Indeed, even when such parents have genuine cases against the teachers, their conduct in school premises effectively nullifies their claims to justice. Therefore, along with the family, schools must be rescued. At the risk of being repetitive, we submit that cultism has trickled down from higher institutions to secondary and primary schools and must be stopped forthwith because it has nothing but sorrow, tears and anguish to offer the society.

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