A Resurging Ugly Trend In Our Schools

It is no longer news that cultism is one of the challenges that the federal government, through the ministry of education, is battling especially in terms of inculcating the right knowledge into students. However, this dreaded monster which seems to be like a cat with nine lives, keeps resurfacing and re-occurring as if culprits and perpetrators are never caught and prosecuted.


 Or better still ,  it seems and feels as if preventive measures like guidance and counselling and other introductory moral lessons are not taught students  during their first semester on campuses and every term in our secondary schools as many incidents have shown that secondary schools are not left out of the menace. On Monday, August 1, 2013, LEADERSHIP newspaper reported the case of some secondary school students in Delta State, who had chosen to practice lesbianism and had also formed the habit of initiating unsuspecting primary school girls into the unholy alliance. As if that isn’t enough, they had gone as far as forming a cult group. It was reported that one of them who agreed to speak, confessed that they hate men and kill them if they (men) come too close to them, and the story continued.

Those in the know have revealed that cultism in our institutions of learning started as pressure groups that encouraged learning, high grades and fought against molestation of students by lecturers simply because the students will not dance to the rhythm of their drums. Some of the groups are known to have names like Black Axe, Black Mamba, Red Scorpion and even the ladies are not left out of this as they are known to have cults for women with some having names like Daughters of Jezebel and Black Bra to mention a few. If this happens in tertiary institutions, it is quite understood because they are adults who have been left to chose and determine their destinies. What about secondary school students and even primary school pupils?

However, this has culminated into a dragon that has been spitting fire and because the nation concentrates on other things without noticing the damage being done by the legendary animal, it has had a field day by destroying people, policies and values which were in the first place, quintessentially brought to give out the best.

Or how would you explain this? A student refuses to be punished by his teacher for an unruly behavior and equally gets a backing from his parents who have since forgotten that a child does not belong to the family alone, but to the society at large.-Or the case of lecturers who are meant to give the best to students found recruiting them to join their groups/factions and cause chaos because they have failed to occupy key positions in the institution? Or is it even the sad case of teachers who are known to have initiated students and even primary school pupils into the occult? The stories are never ending and sound as well as feel like tales that we hear or read on papers but the fact remains that cultism has come to stay and for obvious reasons which will certainly not end well.

During the last nationwide stakeholders meeting, blames were traded with none of the parties agreeing to take total responsibility for the roles they have played to fertilise the ugly trend which is a clear indication that we are only buying time. No wonder, it is responsible for the unacceptable drop in the level of the quality of education. No wonder, Nigeria is not mentioned among the first 100 countries with good quality education, especially at the tertiary level, yet we have had and still have Nigerian students abroad who have distinguished themselves academically and have made international headlines.