Antisocial innovations
When established systems don't work, people create alternatives. Is that the future of the Nigerian regime?From The Economist
Cults of violence: How student fraternities turned into powerful and well-armed gangs
"Nigeria’s university system used to be the finest in west Africa, but today’s classes are overcrowded, buildings are crumbling and the curriculum has remained unchanged for years. The cults emerged from the shambles. Having started life as confraternities for the most academic students, they have deteriorated into gang violence. The Exam Ethics Project, a lobby group, says that inter-cult violence killed 115 students and teachers between 1993 and 2003. The real number may be much higher."The situation is particularly bad in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, the country’s wealthiest and the centre of the oil industry. Here cults have spilled beyond the campus walls to mix with the political militants, thugs and crooks responsible for a violent insurgency in the Niger Delta. Most city residents believe that nearly all of today’s most prominent militant leaders were or still are cult members...
"[M]ilitary leaders of the 1980s and 1990s saw the groups’ growing membership as a chance to confront the leftist student unions, often aligned with pro-democracy movements. So the confraternities were given money and weapons. They turned against student activists—and against each other. By the mid-1980s, violence had become so fierce that Mr Soyinka tried unsuccessfully to disband his former creation.
"As their strength grew, the cults’ influence on the universities became more malign. They exacerbated the corruption that had already bred in unmanageably big classes and deteriorating facilities. Today, older students and alumni flood campuses in the first weeks of the new academic year to recruit for the cults...
"Some progress has been made in tackling the cults at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, thanks to 200-odd security officers, covert surveillance and student informants. For the first time in over a decade there were no gunshots on the campus last year..."
See also:
- Nigerian Student Cults
- Nigeria's Cults and their Role in the Niger Delta Insurgency from the Jamestown Foundation's Global Terrorism Analysis
- A dream perverted
Fifty years ago, Nobel prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka formed a university society with his friends. This month, in a report for Channel 4 News, he returned to Nigeria to find his alma mater being exorcised - part of a national clampdown on the copycat 'cults' blamed for a series of campus atrocities. How has this come to pass?
Renewed Cult Clash Claims Eight Lives in Port Harcourt
This Day (Lagos), 3 August 2008
"After several months of reprieve, Port Harcourt city, Rivers State, lost its peace once again, as rival cult groups engaged themselves in a free-for-all that left eight dead.
"The renewed clash between two warring groups allegedly led by Soboma George and Farah Dogogo, left residents of the oil city scampering for safety.
"The fighting, according to report, started around NPA dock yard extended to Njemanze, Borokiri, Nembe Waterfronts and other parts of the state capital. The cultists were said to have freely detonated dynamites and engaged themselves with sophisticated weapons of war...
"The rival gangs are led by Sogboma George and Prince Farah, who are wanted by the Rivers State government for kidnapping and involvement in other criminal activities, police spokeswoman Rita Abbey said..."
Labels: Nigeria, political culture
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:57 AM
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