The Proprietress of Top Learner’s International School, Dr. Ijeoma Okafor has called for dialogue between school authorities and students to investigate their membership of secret cult.
Speaking in an interview with Metronetworknews on the increase in cult activities among students of secondary and tertiary institutions in Rivers state, at the sideline of the 2021 prize giving and graduation ceremony tagged: ” Top Talents Forum” of Top Learners school in Port Harcourt, the Proprietress said isolating the authorities from the students will make the students not to confide on their membership of secret cult.
She further said Interfacing with the students will go a long way into making them disclose their membership of cult groups, pointing out that fighting cultism requires a psychological approach.
The Proprietress also called on parents to do the same, adding that most cultists were children who stayed away from parents and advised that once a child displays strange character, there is a need to bring him or her close to identify what is worrying him or her.
She said regular counseling can go a long way in abating their membership and appealed to all stakeholders to join hands in curtailing such behaviour.
Her words; ” The increase in cult activities is not only at the university but also in the larger society. We have a lot of people especially students committing a number of crimes”.
” I think we should look at the causes from different perspectives. We can look at it from the parental background of the students who engage in cultism and other vices. Some parents have lost those attributes of good parenting. Most of them are busy chasing money, leaving their children on their own. So, their children tend to pick from wherever they can find. They are also picking from the social media. I think that the social media is the major issue in the increase in cult activities. Just watch the social media, it is praising cultists. We see a lot of people doing a lot of things with guns. Sometimes, it is acted; sometimes, it is real. If you’re not careful, a 15 year old child may think it is real and try to go ahead to commit those crimes or imitate what he or she watched”.
“We can also look at peer group influence, the government and even the problems that students are experiencing as a result of the hardship in the country. Politicians gather a lot of youths for their selfish interest. When they gather these youths, they promise them heaven and earth and then send them against their opponents. At the end of the day, whether they win or not, those youths have imbibed some of those negative characters and they want to go ahead to intimidate other people. You know we live in a society where people like to intimidate others”.
” For me, as you said, what do I suggest that will be able to curb cultism in our institutions. Number one, I think we should create more awareness at the university level. We can have meetings from the hostel to the classroom where we usually find the students. We can bring people to talk to them to be able to understand what their problems are. So many students are joining secret cult not knowing any reason for doing so. For some of them, it is just for them to be seen in a certain group- we are the ones that rule; the reigning and happening people on campus”.
” I also want to suggest that churches and mosques should play a major role by increasing their teachings on the evils of cultism. Whenever these boys and girls are arrested, they keep calling God to save them. That will make you to understand that they belong to some Christian or Islamic organizations”.
Speaking further, the Proprietress said the top talents forum was put together to give prizes to meritorious students of the school.
” The prize giving day is a day we usually set aside to acknowledge children in different capacities. You know in life, God has given us different dosages of capabilities. Some are capable in their cognitive domain, that is, in knowledge and performance. Some are well endowed in their psychomotor domain. Others have good characters, they are interested in neatness, punctuality etc. So, we organized this forum to encourage our pupils and students who are doing well to keep it up as well as motivate others to emulate and learn from them with a view to herd them into becoming better students”, she stated.
