Date Published: 10/07/09

HURIWA supports Governor Imoke's Anti-Cult Crusade

Impressed by the ongoing state-wide vigorous campaign against cultism in Cross River by the Governor Liyel Imoke’s administration, the Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has tasked the National Assembly to introduce a strong legislation to clearly out law the existence of all secret cult groups in the country.

Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, HURIWA a development focused and democracy inclined non-governmental organization has also challenged the federal government especially the presidency to administer a similar public oath of non-membership of secret cults by all public office holders at the federal level even as the Rights groups urged the National Assembly and the judiciary to wage similar war against cultism among their ranks and file. HURIWA believes that the proliferation of cult groups in Nigeria is responsible for the unprecedented rise in economic crimes and social crime. ‘’Membership of secret cults by some judicial officers has also wrecked monumental havoc on the pace, quality and shape of the dispensation of justice in Nigeria’’, HURIWA asserted.

Recalling that Governor Liyel Imoke recently launched a successful state-wide anti-cult membership crusade during which all political office holders in the state were statutorily required to take public oaths of allegiance to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to denounce or renounce membership of all secret cults, HURIWA stated that the move by the Governor of Cross River is a historic precedent which will lead to moral revolution in Nigeria and will promote openness, good governance, transparency, accountability, probity and quicken the enthronement of a just society in Nigeria.

In a statement made available to Journalists by its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the human rights group challenged the National Assembly to ensure that a federal legislation to clearly outlaw membership of all secret societies is enacted because the group believed that section 4(2) (part 1 second schedule) of the federal constitution empowers the National Assembly to make laws for the peace order and good government of the Federation or any part thereof. It disclosed that it is working with good spirited groups to initiate a proposed bill against membership of secret cults by all Nigerians to be sent to the National Assembly before the end of the current legislative year even as it urged the law makers to support the move.

HURIWA affirmed that a national campaign against cultism if waged by the National Orientation Agency, the Federal Ministry of Information and Communication and the 36 state governments including the Federal Capital Territory, is the best form of re-branding Nigeria and would restore Nigeria’s pride of place in the international community.

It is also the view of the Human Rights group that the names of all secret societies be published by the federal government and that the president should throw executive support to the legislation against membership of all cult group whenever it will be introduced in the National Assembly.

HURIWA blamed the secret cults for the unprecedented rise in social and organized crimes of kidnapping and proliferation of small arms all across Nigeria just as it blames proliferation of secret cults in schools for the decline in the quality of university graduates churned out of the nation’s school system. Governments at all levels, it says, must make concerted effort to tackle this ugly trend.

HURIWA stated thus, “we have commenced nation-wide consultations with all stakeholders on strategies for presenting a proposed bill against secret societies and cult groups to the National Assembly because we believe that membership of cult groups by most public office holders is at the root of the widespread existential and economic problems afflicting Nigeria”.

HURIWA said; “we have conducted research and discovered that the reason why most Nigerians are poor in the midst of plenty of natural resources which God endowed Nigeria with, is because most people who have captured political power through undemocratic means in the current dispensation have used their membership in one secret cult or the other to corner the resources of Nigeria to themselves and their members and are protected from prosecution by their members in higher offices and even when they are dragged before the court system, their members and patrons presiding in some of these courts will intervene to thwart the cause of justice and undermine the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

HURIWA believed that only concerted effort by all Nigerians including religious and traditional rulers and the media will ensure the rapid passage of a bill to outlaw membership of secret cults by all Nigerians.

The Rights group stated that so long as some political office holders are members of secret cults, the problems associated with student cultism in Nigerian educational institutions will not be eradicated.