Lawyer Blames Rise In Cultism On Complacency

A Port Harcourt-based legal practitioner, Mr Goodnews Okachukwu Obinna, has attributed the rise of cultism in Nigeria to complacency by government.
Mr Okachukwu who stated this while speaking with newsmen in Port Harcourt at the weekend said cultism evolved from the universities, and first started off as a pressure group, before turning into what it has become now.
He said that most of these cult members were school droppers who went into villages to influence peer groups. He stated that the reason for the escalation of this vice was due to rival cult groups, fighting each other for supremacy in communities.
Okachukwu further noted that the government was not helping the communities to curb cultism because they also benefitted from it. “The government isn’t helping at all, they are even one of the instigators of this act, because they buy these cultists guns to help then win elections, and after the elections do not retrieve the guns from them, making them now use it for their own personal mission”, he said.
He also warned on the failure of the government to make security in the state a priority. Okachukwu said that lives and property were always threatened and lost each day in the state while the government did nothing.
“It is the primary function of government, that’s why what is happening here is like an anomaly, it’s not how it ought to be in a good society. The government does not give security the priority it deserves”, he said.
On the issue of complacency Okachukwu said the government was not complacent when the communities faced cultist challenges, but were confused on what to do and stated that, “cultism is the Frankenstein Monster” the government created with its own hands.