…Says our education system is the problem
Popular Gospel reggae crooner, Buchi, has called for the registration of cult groups by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) as part of measures to put an end to their excesses and take away their secrecy.
Buchi who was a guest of the Channels Television programme, Hard Talk, on Monday, also averred that the faith based organizations are better positioned to arrest the rising trend of cultism in the society.
According to the lecturer turned gospel artiste, cultists carry out their violent acts because they operate from underground and in secrecy, pointing out that when the groups are registered, then their members could be identified and held responsible for their actions.
[penci_blockquote style=”style-2″ align=”none” author=””]“When you register them, they are more careful what they do because they know that you know them. They are answerable for their activities. But when they are not registered, they go underground, there is no one to hold responsible.[/penci_blockquote]“To be in cult, you need the blood oath. You needn’t play down religion in all of this but the truth is, if you leave the faith out of this you are giving up on your most potent weapon. To fight cultism without the faith based organisations, is like carrying a knife to a gunfight; there is very little you could do. They do what they do because of the oath they have taken.
“Now, you are not looking at the oath they have taken, that’s not your business. But you have an association. There are confraternities all around the world; New Sigma, Beta Sigma, Alfa sigma, all of these. All around the world, there are confraternities but they are registered and that checks the members. In the process of getting somebody into cult group, the person gets killed; Violent cultism.
“When you register them, they are more careful what they do because they know that you know them. They are answerable for their activities. But when they are not registered, they go underground, there is no one to hold responsible.
“How many people have been caught and prosecuted? And even if they have, has it died, has the scourge disappeared? No. it grows underground, it’s subterranean. It’s spreading; they recruit new members but when you register them, you know their leaders and can call them to account,” Buchi said.
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The artiste, who said he also joined a cult group in school to find adventure, and wrote Cease Fire, a novel on his experience, identified the country’s educational system as a major problem behind the rising incidence of cultism in schools. He stressed that the education and its curriculum promote the acquisition of certificate rather than knowledge.
His words: “Because of the role of the mind in this, we need to do something about our educational system. That’s where the problem is mainly; the educational system. That’s where the problem is. The quality of the minds that we produce in the universities; the quality of the minds that we produce in the secondary schools; our curriculum; something needs to be done about them.
“Our curriculum needs to engage people mentally while they are in school. I was a lecturer for many years. So, I saw these things happen; when people came to school not really to acquire knowledge but to obtain certificate to enable them move on to whatever they want to do. Then it was no longer about acquiring education”.