What is cultism?
Simply put, secret gatherings, with single agenda and interest.
Who is a cultist?
Person, who gets involves in practice/activities of cultism.
Cultism, which hitherto is believed and known for long to belong to the domain of university campuses, restricted to undergraduates, has now sneaked out of the campuses.
Today, cultism and cultists have penetrated our primary and secondary schools and our neighbourhoods. This is quite frightening. It means our children, sisters and brothers can be lured or initiated into cultism. They can be initiated by those we trust most in the community.
Worse, it’s even now more pronounced among primary schools and children less than 10 and 11years of age. It has also taken hold of uneducated children often found in our communities.
Youths, who dropped out of schools for myriad reasons, and those who couldn’t even afford the chance of being educated are now being easily lured into cultism.
It may shock you to know that crime is interwoven, interlinked and interfaced. Girls are also now among cultists.
These young girls are often defiled and raped. They become ‘lovers’ to different members of the gang with one being her major ‘husband.’
Thus begins the girl’s life of teenage prostitution; used to being sexually active and exploited at a young age, a girl wouldn’t find sex and her body sacred as she grows into adulthood. The effect is that she wouldn’t see anything wrong in initiating younger girls into prostitution. Crime is a vicious circle.
A young girl that does not see sex as sacred, will very likely be trafficked into sexual slavery. She may contract HIV, STD or become a prostitute. She could die.
How do cultists operate?
They are always in groups, they engage in street fights, they are often armed with dangerous weapons, they form gangs. They carry out nocturnal activities and often carry out initiations and meetings in forests, bushes or uncompleted buildings. These days, they are now on social media, using slangs known only to their members.
I vividly remember a particular cultism story I reported last year. When I went to one of the members’ Facebook Wall I saw a picture that completely rendered me speechless. The boy posed in a picture; he armed with an AK47 rifle. It was shocking; how did he get the rifle?
In another picture, he and other members were in meeting, wearing strange berets, similar colours. They wore hand bands. In another picture, they were drinking expensive wines.
How and where did they get money to buy such those expensive wines?
Why do youths join cultism?
Many youths go into cultism over misguided quest for them to be respected and to belong to a certain group. They also mistakenly think that the group will provide an umbrella for them.
The truth, however, is that when the law catches up with them, nobody can protect them from the court and prisons.
Others joined cultism through intimidation, love of money, bully, threats, and tricks, among others.
A cultist will most times makes life miserable for the uninitiated, just he wants him to become initiated. These innocent boys are often attacked and beaten for no reasons. Many are threatened with death, acid and guns.
Some of the uninitiated, scared, had often ran to the Nigerian Police, but are often left defenseless. Filled with fear and despair, they reluctantly join.
I remembered a case where a boy had to go and buy a gun because he was tired of being bullied and intimidated. He told me that he had gone to the police station to report twice about his life being threatened, but the police had told him to go home.
Naturally, our policemen need to be given a crash course on how to handle issues that have to do with youths, crime and security.
The way an adult case is handled, shouldn’t be the way a youth’s should be handled.
How do youths join cultism?
We have different cult groups in Nigeria. These groups have different names. So also they have different methods of initiations.
*Those who are going to be initiated are subjected to oath taking.
*They are tortured, with wounds visibly seen on their bodies.
*They can be ordered to go and kill to prove their valour.
*Some are invited to birthday parties and thus, they had become initiated.
*Some of the boys are asked to go and look for girls to rape before the initiation rites can be completed.
*Some are forced to drink blood.
*Girls that joined are often raped by almost all the male members of the group.
Why cultism thrives?
#Youths are not speaking much against it. Youths need to become more actively involved and vocal in stating their stance against cultism.
#Poor parental care: Many parents are not aware of what is happening right under their noses. They are not paying enough attention to their children.
#Broken homes can contribute to thrive of cultism in society. A child of a broken home, especially with both parents, leaving to marry other partners, may be caught in the middle. He/she may begin to feel and yearned to be feel loved and wanted, he/she joins bad friends.
#No good or well-equipped correctional facilities in the country. Many youths go to prison to become hardened. They later leave the facilities to form deadly robbery gangs.
There has been an ongoing debate on whether the Nigerian correctional facilities are really correcting or slowly turning kids into criminals.
Youths’ role in checking cultism
As youths, we all need to help in checking the spiraling of cultism in Nigeria, beginning with focus on primary, secondary students and neighbourhoods kids.
If we all start speaking out against crime, especially cultism, no doubt we shall make an impact.
The message against youths in crime needs to be louder in traditional and social media outlets.
Some consequences of cultism
As youths, we need to begin to change the mental attitude of other youths towards crime, but cultism in particular. Some youths see cultism as fashionable, but they fail to reflect on the danger and its effect on their future.
Cultism can never take a youth to any good place in life, rather, it will hinder your success and make responsible people that can assist to keep away from you.
The future of a cultist may come with untimely death, imprisonment, permanent scars, and (loss of eye, arms or legs). Whatever we can make of our youths, will resonates on what our future world will be.
Cultism is not a fashion; it’s a physical, social, and psychological form of death sentences.
Effects and consequences of cultism on society and youths
Cultism and cultist groups are created to provide a false sense of security. Nevertheless, the consequences of joining the cult are dire.
According to media reports, hundreds if not thousands of youths had been killed while involved in cult related activities.
People who join cult groups alienate themselves from parents, relatives, friends and other loved ones.
They are brainwashed and leave with no possession to survive in real world. They become slaves to cults. They are killed or end up being killed, they are marred. They may end up mad due to smoking of hard drugs.
JULIANA EBERE FRANCIS IS THE FOUNDER, YOUTHS AGAINST CRIME
(YOUTHLENS.COM)
08023684528.
First Published 2018
