To understand what we are experiencing in Nigeria today, we must understand the difference between confraternity/fraternity and cultism; and what is leading young people to join the former groups. We observe that the almighty created fraternity with our family system.
Confraternity or brotherhood exists in all walks of life, mortal and religious lives. In religious orders, confraternity exists as in confraternity of penitents – Oremus Pro Invicem, in Catholic dogma, we have the Knight of Columbus, a sort of confraternity of some religious order, and in mortal world – the university campuses all over the world, we have, for example: Pyrate confraternity formed fifty years ago in a Nigerian University, and in Yale University, The secrete of the Tomb: Skull & Bones. To all intents and purposes, Nigerian military has metamorphosized into confraternity and some may even say into cultism because of the crimes it committed against Nigerian citizens and the looting spree it invented. Such formation of brotherhood was not initially formed to commit crimes but to understand and help create disciplined men capable of moving a nation forward.
Cultism, on the other hand, is an unorthodox or spurious deviation from the tenets of confraternity, make no mistakes about it. Cults are formed, at least in Nigeria, for the sole purpose of destroying, pillaging and usurping violent powers inherent in the new found cults for political intimidation and extra judicial killings.
In the fifties, sixties, seventies, and even in the eighties, confraternities thrived on the university campuses in Nigeria. Some of the confraternities ended up making positive contributions on the lives of their nations. One of such fraternities is the Skull & Bones or whatever the name is at Yale University in the United States of America. Many of their members are ex-Presidents, ex-senators, current and ex-members of the House of Assembly and judges of the most powerful nation in the world.
Another fraternity which people fail to recognize as such is the military. Because of their Espirit de corp, the speak no evil, hear no evil cult, most of the financial and human right crimes committed by the military men in Nigeria may never be solved. The military enabled criminality more than any one group in our civil society. Because the military are so cohesive and speak in unison, they easily pillage, loot, can destroy Nigeria and we seem not to be able to do anything about their actions because we’ve all been intimidated and forced to recoil into our shells. On their watch, corruption became systemic and endemic. They negatively impacted our daily lives most of the time. Yet, many military men past or present were, during their times of service and after their retirement, are still good men and patriotic Nigerians. Some of them, potent, however, are thugs and rogues who would have been armed robbers even if they were not in uniform.
Fraternities attract people of all shades and colors and people with different mission just as politics does even though the definition on what politics is to accomplish is well set in stone. Fraternities could be where angelic acts are established or they may be where the devil recruit, take your pick. In and by themselves, fraternities are not bad if their intents are positively harnessed.
In the video, Professor Wole Soyinka gave us the definition of the fraternity he formed over fifty years ago. The members of his original group were young and idealistic men. Their fraternity was formed to counter colonialism which still exists in Nigeria of today but under a different aegis. In America and Europe, for example, there are different fraternities. In America, some of them are police, fire fighter, rifle association and religious fraternities such as the Knight of Columbus that perform good deeds. What Adedibu is doing in Oyo is equivalent to cultism not fraternity. At best, Chief Obasanjo enabled Adedibu and President Musa Yar ‘Adua tolerates him because, maybe, he does not want to offend OBJ, his godfather.
In the fifties, sixties and seventies, fraternities existed at the Federal School of Science, Onikan as in our universities in Nigeria. Some of these fraternity members or “what you ma call them” were very brilliant, socially relevant, dynamic in outlook and were productive members of the science school and the university communities. The worst that we thought of the members of the pyrates, at least at the Federal school of science, was that they drank a lot and were very sociable bunch not cults or killers and indeed, no one can give record of killing, maiming, or threats to lives and properties. But then, drinking was a fad among many teenagers of their time. Yet, they were best of the bunch academically. I believe what lured people then to confraternities or fraternity was the academic seriousness and brotherhood these young men exhibited among themselves.
Unfortunately, what is luring students to cultism these days is the hopelessness and joblessness in the nation, and more importantly, the need to be relevant since looting and extra judicial killing have become a way of gaining recognition and of making money, the same money that hard work could have earned cult members. Moreover, the employers of these cult members are the very people that looted the nation and still want to be relevant even after their time is up. The difference between the then fraternities and the now cultism is joblessness effectively created by the very sources that are using the members to do their dastardly and cowardly acts of maiming, looting and outright political thuggery.
An idle mind is said to be friends of the devil. Whenever young, impressionable and energetic young men and even women have more time in their hands, they can be dangerous to themselves and to the nation. We have all been concentrating on making the almighty Naira (Dollar conversions) to the detriment of our children’s lives. Rather, we must understand the mind set of these cult members, parents must be alert to the activities of their children and know who friends of their children are. Our responsibility to rid the nation of cultism begins at home.
We have blamed Professor Wole Soyinka long enough. It is time to direct the blames where they belong. Why is cultism thriving in our society? If we know the reasons we can begin to solve the real problem. The jobs that our politicians and hence milito-democractic system created are jobs for hired, vicious and those whose minds have been altered by drugs in our society. How we resolve our present political impasse and joblessness will determine if we can eliminate cultism and if we want our nation develop? Otherwise, we may just accept cultism and killings as the new albatross on the nation’s neck, one that is more vicious than corruption.
What I was expecting Professor Wole Soyinka to state in his conclusion was that since these so call big men are using these kids to cause mayhem and chaos, we the citizens are challenging government to identify the supporters and users of cult members, take them to court and rid these menace to our society. Do not blame Wole Soyinka for starting his fraternities. Blaming him is equivalent to blaming the gods for establishing religions dogma and hanging them if their members strayed away from the philosophy of the founders. But then, if Professor Wole Soyinka’s exposition on cultism was just be to draw a distinction between the fraternity he formed and today’s cultism, he succinctly succeeded. Thank you, Wole Soyinka for finally visiting this nagging national issue. We may have, at last, received our Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace; Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum (Now thou you’ve dismiss your servant, O Lord, according to your word in peace; Because our eyes have seen thy salvation).
Dr. Christopher Odetunde wrote from Houston, Texas, USA.
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