Cult Activities

Cult Activities: Dent On Image Of Tertiary Institutions
By

Charles Ikedikwa Soeze

While delivering some findings of psychology as aid to educational policy at the centenary hall, Ake Abeokuta, on Monday, 22nd January, 1973 at 4 p.m. Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo (of blessed memory) the best president Nigeria never had according to the late ex-Biafran warlord, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegu Ojukwu stated that education has two functional and inseparable facts: learning and development (L&D). There can be neither without the other.

Therefore, it is a truism to say that teaching automatically implies learning and vice versa. However, while teaching implies the existence of living people or students, there can be learning without the existence of a living teacher. It is therefore appropriate to say that a good deal of our knowledge in life derives from natural phenomena and from the general setting of the society in which we live.

In this connection therefore, education has been a means of transmitting one's culture from one generation to other. It is the process of bringing about permanent change in the students and pupils behaviour. Since it is the oldest industry, it has been applied by the society to preserve, maintain, and upgrade its social equilibrium.

Generally, education in any country is expected to bring about social changes in attitude; motivation and incentive which will culminate to technological change, invention and imitation. Education is also expected to play a vital role in the structural integration of a plural society by equalising occupational and economic opportunities, raise the level of self-reliance, deduction, responsibility, nationality, loyalty, a sense of co-existence, cooperation, fair-play and understanding (Wang: 1976). Education as a whole therefore should broaden the outlook of the recipients who work for peace and harmony in times of stress and strain. Obviously, Nigeria's realization of education's potency as the key factor to social, economic and political development formulated a new policy on education as an expression of government's way of achieving that part of its national objectives through education as tool (Adeyemi 1999). These objectives as stated in the second, third and fourth national development plans are, the building of a just and egalitarian society; a united, strong and self-reliant nation; a great and dynamic economy; a free and democratic society; and of bright and full opportunities for all citizens.

Currently, secret cult activities have dented and denigrated the image of our tertiary institutions including primary and secondary schools, this is a dangerous dichotomy and should be urgently addressed. One can say that there are good reasons to believe that many of the early secret cults in the world were originally founded as benevolent associations for laudable and objectionable purposes. It is claimed that in China, secrete associations have always played vital roles in the life of the Chinese, which extend to their politics, religion, commerce, trade unions and the criminal underworld. In Nigeria, according to Fadipe (1970), among the Yoruba, there existed in the past, the ogboni secret society which was associated with the making of laws and administration. It also existed among top civil servants in the defunct Midwest Region. Members became power brokers in the appointments and promotions of top civil servants.

The beginning of secret cults on campus dated back to the formation of the pirate confraternity in the 1950's by a group of undergraduates of the University of Ibadan among whom was the noble laureate, Wole Soyinka. At this period, university education was an exclusive preserve of the children of the rich or high class. The poor children of the less privileged who managed to gain admission into the system were made to encounter a lot of problems through strict conventions which must be followed and adequately obeyed. These acts of ''Colonial Aristocracy'' made some students which include Wole Soyinka, Aig Imoukhuede, Nathaniel Oyelola, Olumuyiwa Awe, Ifeghale Amata, Ralph Opara and Pius Obeghe formed the confraternity to fight against these negative tendencies of colonial mentality, elitist behaviour, and all other forms of social ills. The association fought seriously against moribund convention, fight for humanistic ideals and to fight against corruption and tribalism, the pirate confraternity, it is clear that the pioneers had benevolent purposes. Without mincing words, campus cult activities have taken a new dimension which is not only tarnishing but denigrating the image of students, staff, management and the education industry generally.

It is abundantly clear that the cultists in Nigerian tertiary institutions have made nonsense of higher education. The cultists now use the association as a tool for perpetrating violence, killings, robbery, vendetta, hooliganism, gangstarism, force, unjust denial of other students, false confidence, examination malpractice, fraud, violation of rules and regulations of schools among other bad acts that are against acceptable societal norms and valves.

No doubt, the pride of higher education has been wiped off, as no student feel too proud to introduce himself or herself as an undergraduate or student of a tertiary institution because the cultists have soiled the image of the large number of students.

It is appropriate to say that cult activities on our campuses, universities, polytechnics, colleges of education including primary and secondary schools now pose a serious threat even on national unity. The human and material losses that often attend the operations of cults have become scandalous, leading to calls for a decisive measure by government and the larger society to stop their devilish and criminal acts. Recently, Idiong Bassey Nathaniel and Ekanem Bassey Nathaniel who were rusticated for cult activities in different tertiary institution allegedly murdered their father Professor Nathaniel Bassey who retired from the Department of Economics, University of Calabar, over his N45m gratuity. Where do we go from here according to a popular musician?