Eben Enasco

In Nigeria today, a significant proportion of student activism does not present a desire by the activist students to correct campus or society ills and/ or assert alignment with an identity.

Rather, it has been abused to form cults—covert activist cum religious occultist associations that are not only dangerous to themselves but to others who are on the campus to pursue their legitimate goals.

The distasteful sweet feeling that comes with harming someone in return for an injury is what propelled some students to join cult gang.

The need to exert revenge on a campus bully, lecturer, or a fellow student who wronged another is a prominent reason for joining among cult members.

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Cultists mostly operate underground, bestriding the campus landscape like a
colossus whenever they choose to strike.

Surreptitiously hiding their identity from other members of the university community, members of the campus cults are bold, daring and deadly. Their activities involve murder, rape and robbery, among other forms of violent.

Those who relatively cut corners for more powers are adventurous Cult leaders who believed in lording over others.

Power gives you wing and wings that can make you fly above everyone else on campus and lord your presence over everyone.

File: Victim of the recent court clashes in Benin

This is the kind of narrative some cult groups deploy to lure innocent students, Bus drivers, dropouts and some street urchins into their midst.

And anyone who feels having such power would make him cut corners, escape lecturers punishments and feel like a lord among his peers would buy the rhetoric and get initiated in no time.

This is where the narrative deviated from the original agenda of setting up Confraternity activism on campuses.

They missed it the moment they witnessed some level of success in campus battles, only by initiating homeless boys, those closed to friends in campuses that couldn’t gain admissions, bus conductors, land grabbers, motor park touts.

The body bags are on the increase because of poor background of those initiated with leaders losing grips over their supposed subordinates.

Most often, heads of various cult groups have no educational background yet dictates for those in campuses who are supposed to build territorial gaps.

The land-grabber and Bus Conductors now determine how campus life works, whilst they have no idea how campuses it actually functions.

They form bulk of Zonal heads with the only orientation to avenge any opposition whenever crisis arose.
To curb these numerous excesses, the leadership must halt initiating those without perquisite and instill stringent procedures.

Failed Institutions

The basic roles of institution which include efficiency in service delivery are absolutely relegated to the background, which by extension, impact negatively on economic performance in the country.

READ ALSO: Bullet-Riddled Bodies Litter Benin Streets As Cult Clash Remains Unabated

Unlike the widely held views that corruption is a manifestation of institutional failure, I suggest that institutional failure is rather a manifestation of corruption in the country.

It is obvious that Nigerians are not happy that the Federal Government has misplaced its priority by meddling in what should not be of concern to them.

The Standard of living in the country today, is equal to zero in ratings.

Youths have become stranded with bad policies and the implementation of such policies by successive governments.
Government at all levels are palpable culprits culminating from bad leadership that had steered the resources’ overtime. Despite governments not leaving up to expectations, parents also have a fair share in a child up brings and this must be addressed.

File: one of the victims of the recent cult clash in Benin

Nigeria’s institutions are weak because successive governments have failed to build infrastructure stable for development and create job opportunities.

The expectation of average Nigerian who just graduated to secure career job lifeline is almost impossible. In Nigeria, jobs are created on papers.

Therefore, many of those youths who would have obeyed common ethical nubs only survive through their own efforts since Government can’t provide for them basic needs

Threats To Security Operatives, Threat To All

If those whose first mandate is to secure lives and properties are now afraid to carry out their duties because of certain threats, then something definitely is wrong with such society.

This is the frightening moment a gang, one of whom is armed with a pitchfork, broken bottles, guns and other life threatening weapons launch a savage attack on citizens.

READ ALSO: Cultists On Rampage In Benin As Death Toll Rises

Footage of scary scenes have unfolded in most flash point areas and have become a source of worry.

Few days ago, Police team led by an Assistant Commissioner Of Police who also heads one of the Area Commands and his boys were attacked with the officers sustaining bullets wounds occasioned in exchanges of gunfire between the suspected criminals and the police.

Police are human and also deserves protection. Most wives of Policemen have become widows and poorly treated with no end in sight of their welfare packages.

In a recent remarks by the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, while on official visit to affected states to take on the spot assessments of the attacked police stations in Edo State Command post EndSARS protests, he said, “is it Good for a police policeman to die with a raffle in his hands? The response was thunderous. The IGP was right to an extent when he urged the police operatives to defend themselves considering the level at which hoodlums have continued to launch various attacks on them.

Although, some bad elements have polluted the police institution, however, that can’t underscore the values they bring in curbing criminal attacks.

The commissioner of Police Edo State Command, Babatunde Kokumo said recently that since various police divisional stations were set ablaze, crimes have been on the increase.

His words: “Just imagine what it means that three police stations along Sokponba Road, Benin were destroyed and burnt, patrol vehicles were destroyed in many other parts of Edo State”.

Today, many of the criminal cultists openly brandishes AK-47 rifles, machetes, battle axes, broken bottles, clubs and other dangerous weapons in broad daylight, shooting sporadically throughout the night and heightening tension in Benin and its environs.

Speaking via the telephone, the Edo State Commissioner of Police, Babatunde Kokumo, said that officers and men of the command were working within existing limitations to reclaim public space and restore normalcy to the state.
These anomalies must stop and peace must return to encourage development.

Role Of Edo State Government

One of the major steps undertaken by responsible government is to create jobs for restive youths.

Creating an integrity base Community Policing can also help stamp-out lawlessness in the state.

However, Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, recently reassured that his administration is devising a new state-led security scheme to tackle rising insecurity in an effort to safeguard lives and property in Edo State.

Obaseki disclosed this at the Passing out Parade of 877 Special Constables under the Community Police Project, at the Police Training School, Ogida, in Benin City.

The Governor noted that it has become inevitable in the light of the flawed central policing system in the country, which makes the demand for restructuring of the nation more germane.

Obaseki added that the 877 Special Constables are part of the first batch of the 2000 constables to be trained for community policing in collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force in Edo State.

“The idea of community policing is not new to us as an administration. This concept which has led to the recruitment, training and subsequent graduation of the special constables was one of the ideas I discussed with the present Inspector General of Police, Adamu Mohammed, when he served as the Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of Police Zone 5 in Benin City, several years ago,” he said.

There are two sides to the creation of the Community Policing.

First indication is the window of jobs creation and secondly taking Policing to the grass root were indigenous people will play a key role in Combating crimes.

By this, it would help fish out those who are not from the state and endeared the lost trust between the Government and the governed.

The Frame work for the community Policing architecture must encompass traditional institutions, Religious leaders, Community leaders and various stakeholders to bring it to fruition.

Recommendations

Thus, the Nigerian economy faces enormous challenges and a bleak future unless fundamental steps are taken to redress the legacies of the past.

READ ALSO: One Burnt To Death In Early Morning inferno In Edo

Among the many requirements for curbing corruption, crimes and hopelessness, is moral regeneration through moral education.

This would require the establishment of an institute for ethical studies for public officers, youths and business persons in the state in extension Nigeria.

It would also require Nigerians doing things in fundamentally different ways than in the past to break away from the corruption, institutional failure and poor economic performance trap.

Of more relevance is the need for government to restructure the whole system, create openings for youths engagement, perhaps reward and incentive system, especially in the public sector.

Youths must now rethink before this Generation is wiped out through their misplaced priorities and create a template for positive recognition to engage Government for proper collaborations as well as societal values.