By Mfon-Obong Ntiero, Miriam Ejimi
Venatius Ikem, former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is afraid that there is a proliferation of cultism and cultists in all tiers of government in Cross River State. However, he also is of the opinion that this ugly trend is not restricted to CRS alone.
Ikem who spoke this morning on “The Public View”, a news and current affairs programme on HIT 95.9 FM, Calabar, further explained that it is sickening “that even the people who manage to escape school without being recruited, when they come out, because they want to get into politics, get recruited. I mean I have had plenty of pressure in my earlier years in politics, but I have always asked them a question, if I could succeed through school to this point without being a member of a fraternity, why do I need to be one now?”
The former PDP scribe further pointed out that, “there are people who do favour their colleagues in several considerations, but I think these are the people doing a disfavour to the society. Some of them, even when they pretend that they are no longer members, there is an attitude to favour people on the basis of fraternities and it is absolutely a problem.”
Not done, Ikem went on to say that with the way recruitment is now done from even the primary schools, there is a very high possibility that all of those running government, with only a very few exceptions, are either members of one fraternity or the other. “If you have preponderance of cultists and cultism in the society, definitely there will be many of them in government and there is nothing you can do about that.”
Ikem appears to be re-echoing the realities of a situation that is threatening the arrest and prosecution of suspected cultists who have serially been arrested by security agencies in the state but have since not been prosecuted. In recent times too, www.calitown.com has reported on the incessant cult clashes in the state that have consumed several persons.