The menace of cultism in Nigerian tertiary institutions calls for diligent analysis and pragmatic remedy.
Few weeks ago, the Obafemi Awolowo University Administration handed over 12 suspected cult members (students and ex students that have refused to graduate) to Osun State CID, Osogbo.
While it is a commendable development, it is equally crystal clear that the University is only interested in cheap populism, cosmetic face-saving drama, as the concerned individuals have been released without any further investigation or prosecution.
Obviously, the scenario is dangerous to the University Community and the Country at large.
For the sake of records, this scenario is reccurring and the scenes playing out like the 1999 brutal attack that claimed the lives of five Obafemi Awolowo University students. For students of history, the events preceeding the July 10, 1999 massacre is grossly similar to the current events.
The University Administration has forgotten, that he who fails to learn from history is doomed to repeat it, as a farce.
George Iwilade Afrika (Secretary General of the Great Ife Students' Union 98/99) alongside other bold students got the hint of a cult-initiation going on at the University staff quarters and mobilized to arrest the cultists with different arms and ammunition. They were interrogated and later confessed to be members of the Black Axe Confraternity.
The arrested cultists were charged to the Magistrate Court, Ile-Ife but the Students' Union (the Complainant) was not at once invited to give evidence till the case got buried.
The then Professor Wale Omole University Administration influenced the Prosecuting counsels, demobilized them and the case struck out.
The same cultists were seen on campus again, boasting and waxing stronger.
Strangely, whenever the management was at loggerheads with the Union leadership, the cultists that were freed by their shenanigans and hanky panky were mobilized. The climax of it which played out on July 10, 1999 when the Vice Chancellor sponsored cultists (within and outside the campus) to massacre five students among many other casualties, with the then Union President, Lanre Adeleke escaping by a whisker.
The brief account of events before/on July 10, 1999 will bring to fore the hyprocritical University Administration politicizing serious security issues just like the days of the the 1999 sacked Vice Chancellor, Prof. Wale Omole.
It is no coincidence that the University Administration is always swift in prosecuting Students' Activists who mean no harm to the University Community. A perfect example is the recent case of OAU5 who were remanded in Kosere Prison with the conspiracy of a particular Magistrate in March 2018. The swift suspension of students who participated in a peaceful protest in October 2017 and also the unlawful deactivation of 5 Students' eportal pages are fresh in our memories.
Till now, the University Administration has refused to issue out a release on what led to the arrest, detention and also sudden release of these cult boys without prosecution.
It must be noted that the only solution to the present cult crisis on campus is for the University to recognize and encourage radical, vibrant, ideologically- guided Students' Unionism.
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede should be called to order by members of the public, activists and labour unions to expose, stop pampering and demand the public profile of these cultists in Obafemi Awolowo University.
It is only with our collective demand that can coerce a stubborn/autocratic University Management, like ours from continually victimizing innocent students critics and taking security issues seriously, without politicizing it.
Alawode Afolabi Samuel (Afoo Revo) is a member of the Alliance of Nigerian Students against Neo Liberal Attacks (ANSA). A penultimate year student of the Department of English.
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