Taiwo Akinlami: Tips on Personal Safety/Self-Protection from Cultism (2)

Hello dear young friends; sure you are doing well today. The weekend was greatly rewarding as I spent time with young people like you at the Activate Youth Camp, convened by Mrs. Kike Omooba in Lagos Nigeria. It was a great time to talk to these youngsters, who are brilliantly bright and committed to take their destiny into their hands under God.

As I write today, I am still under the influence of the excitement I had participating in the program.

Permit me to quickly continue; where I stopped the last time I was here. I think we began a kind of profiling of the cult members from the home they come from. Proper profiling must begin for the cradle, the immediate environment and sources of influence in the life of the child.

Here is a further description of the kind of homes, which produce today’s cultists. Some of these children, who end up the cult’s den, are from wealthy homes, where they arrived on the earth with a silver spoon in their mouth. By virtue of their silver spoon birth and access to parental cajoling have lost their hold on discipline and self- control. As I always say, an abused child and spoilt child share common destiny. The abused child is robbed of his/her dignity of human person and he/she arrived at adulthood spineless. The spoilt child does not have in his/her loins the fiber of morality and character. When a spoilt child or abused child gains independence, particularly gaining admission into school at adolescent, they become like a city without walls and a train without brakes. Such teenagers are what I call disasters in waiting. Soon, they find expression for their lack of discipline and control in joining the campus cult. The deeper they get in their involvement, the more dangerous they become to themselves, their family, their community and their nation.   It is as if they derive pleasure from inflicting psychological, social and physical pains in form of mental and physical torture (maiming, killing, raping etc.) first on themselves and then on innocent members of the academic community.

Without mincing words, they clearly radiate the conclusion of a negative set of youths, who have lost touch with the very purpose of their existence in life and have, in ignorance, embraced the realities of misplaced priorities. Their acts, and not their persons, are not fit to exist in any civilized society and these activities reminds one of the stone age when life was “brutish, nasty and short”.

Our discussion of this problem shall not be conventional. We shall look carefully into the making of the cult boy or girl. We shall carefully consider social factors, which cut across class and status of children, who join the cult. We will also help young people to define or redefine their priorities. The goal is to help them make the right choices in life both in terms of their social life and career development.

From next week, we will begin to discuss the impact of cultism on the cultists, the immediate society, where they operate, their family members and the society at large. Please make it a point of duty not to miss it.

I am signing out here. I am available on this platform for interactions on matters you wish to seek counsel on. I shall be back next week by the grace of God. Do have an INSPIRED day. Stay SMART.