The
VOX POPULI SACRUM
racle
Today
www.oraclenews.ng
WEDNESDAY April 4, 2018
ISSN: 2545-5869
VOL.3 No.13 N200
Cultism – Bayelsa cuts head to cure headache
A
NGER is at the centre of the amended anti-cultism law of the Bayelsa State Government. We dare say that a law that is made in anger is more of an expression of frustration than an effort to deal with the challenge. The provisions already show. CULTISM is a challenge. It is trouble for everyone in Bayelsa. Other States have challenges with cultism. Bayelsa’s seem unique from
THE ORACLE COMMENT
various accounts and it is the considered reason for the stringent provisions of the law. IN Bayelsa, cultism is incrementally violent. It is becoming a major profession for the young and old. It is becoming a tradition and the rea-
sons for people joining them vary, just as people are different. AMONG the major causes of cultism are high unemployment, government’s inability to protect people, contests for power that dovetail into illegal means like thuggery, oil
businesses and their compromising fractionalisation of peoples and properties, and evident prosperity of those who become cultists. THE successful ones are the toast of society. They are welcome at
events as kings. In most cases, their presence guarantees security at events. Politicians, even the security agencies, court cultists. They believe that their work would be easier if they have them on their sides. CULTISM is not new. The solutions to it have either been bans or heavy sentences. None has worked. “Se-
Danjuma fires gun debate
Cont’d on page 24
• Situation justifies gun ownership • Firearms Prohibition Act too narrow • Fire arms liberalisation may lead to anarchy • We can’t provide security for all schools – Army From VICTOR NZE, Lagos; COLLINS UGHALAA, Owerri; BONIFACE OKORO, Umuahia; CHUKS EZE, Enugu; CHRISTAIN EZE, Yenagoa; CHUKS COLLINS, Awka; THEO RAYS and IBE NWACHUKWU, Onitsha;
I • Gen. Danjuma
• President Buhari
IPOB not illegal – FG Witness
T
RIALS of the for detained members of Indigenous People of Biafra, began before Justice Binta Nyako’s court in Abuja on Thursday 22 March 2018, with a DSS officer identified as AB, to hide his identity, as directed by the presiding judge, who said he “investigated” Bright Chimezie, one of the defendants, after he
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was arrested by the DSS at Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, admitting that IPOB was not an illegal organisation at the time of the arrest. Led in evidence by prosecution counsel, the witness also testified that Mr. Chimezie was an IPOB ‘Welfare Officer in charge of giving money donated by IPOB members to assist widows IPOB mem-
bers killed by security agents during their demonstrations on self determination’. The Witness further testified that Mr. Chimezie was the one who took delivery of the container bearing the transmitter the government had alleged IPOB intended to use to broadcast its ‘message of self determination in
Cont’d on page 2
f there is anything Lt. Gen. T. Y Danjuma’s recent riposte on the precarious security situation in the country has achieved, it is to have rekindled the agelong debate on the merits or otherwise of liberalizing gun control in Nigeria to allow citizens easier access to guns so they can defend themselves when the need arises. Already under pressure to condemn unprovoked attacks by herdsmen on communities across the country, including his native Taraba State where many have died or sustained serious injuries in deadly attacks by herdsmen, Danjuma, a former Chief of Army Staff practically broke loose when, speaking last Saturday at the maiden convocation of Taraba State University, he said: “You must rise to protect yourselves from these people. If you depend on the
Cont’d on page 2
Decline alarms Northern leaders