…Says They Know those behind Cultism
By Jude Atupulazi
Worried by the spate of cult killings in the town, an Awka High Chief, Ozo Jeff Nweke, Wednesday convened a security summit during which he blamed the scourge on lack of employment opportunities for youths of Awka Town.
Speaking at the summit which had the theme, ”Combating/Preventing Violent Crimes and Menace of Cultism in Awka Metropolitan City”, Chief Jeff Nweke, in his opening remarks, said violent crime which had enveloped Awka, brought about the summit, which, he said, gathered 20 out of the 33 villages in Awka.
He said violent crimes had no place in Awka but noted that beyond rejecting such, solutions should be offered and cited the lack of employment of opportunities to the youths of the town as the chief cause of crimes.
He regretted that the town, despite donating their lands to the Anambra State Government for development purposes, the owners of the lands had neither been adequately compensated nor provided alternative means of livelihood.
He said the acquisition of their lands had altered the way they lived and left many people without any tangible means of survival and thus, pushing some people into crime, especially the youths.
‘As much as we’re rejecting this trend, if you don’t know how it started you cannot solve it,” Ozo Nweke said. Awka was not like this before. Why are our children killing each other? If we don’t solve this problem by ourselves I don’t know who’s going to solve them,” he said, noting that it had come to a situation where the people had to defend themselves.
Stating that Awka People knew those perpetrating the crime, he said, ‘Those behind the chaos are our sons and brothers, we know them. We won’t dissociate ourselves from them and that’s why we’re succeeding,” he pointed out. But he said that rather than arresting and dealing with them, which, he noted, he is not against, efforts should be made to rather rehabilitate them in order to be better citizens in the future.
Regretting the absence of the Anambra State Government at the summit despite being invited, Ozo Nweke called on the security agencies to work in synergy with Awka People.
‘I’m doing this because I’m from Awka and everyone sitting here is the chief security officer of his household, he insisted, vowing that they would not sit and watch things continue to degenerate.
‘It is no other people that are dying but our children, brothers and cousins,’ he said, while disclosing that those behind the crimes were known.
‘If there’s anyone here who says they don’t know who are behind these things, that person is lying!’
He thanked the security personnel that had been helping out and said the people of the town were grateful, even as he insisted that poverty remained a major cause of the crimes in the capital city.
He called on the government to provide job opportunities for Awka people to keep the boys busy and gainfully employed, even as he urged security agencies to up their game and contribute in educating Awka youths on the dangers of crime.
Ozo Nweke nevertheless said that Awka people had a lot to do, especially as they knew those behind the crimes. He told them to quit blaming the security agencies but themselves and decried the practice by Awka families of quickly carting away corpses of victims and then later asking the police find the bodies.
Such practice, he said, only aided the killers, as the police would be unable to carry out a post mortem necessary for their investigation.
Nweke also described as fallacy, the allegation by the immediate past Commissioner of Police that it was influential men in Awka that were covering up for criminals in the city and described it as unnecessary blame game.
Pledged the readiness of Ezinano Community of Awka to work with security agencies, he announced plans by the community to call on all cultists to come out and renounce cultism on a date to be chosen in December, saying they would empower themselves in the absence of government support.
He however, announced zero tolerance for cultism in Awka and vowed to hand over any culprit to the police even before they, the police, knew about the crime. This was even as he vowed to stop any benefits accruing to any family that hid their children or wards who committed crime.
The Commissioner of Police, Obono Nnaghe Itam, represented by Deputy Commissioner of Police, Anietie Eyo, identified inferiority complex, domestic violence, unemployment, and social injustice as underlying causes of cultism.
He traced the origins of cultism to tertiary institutions, where, he said, it often began, but noted that street cultists were often recruited by individuals who had graduated from higher institutions and were seeking a sense of belonging.
Additionally, he blamed politicians for recruiting cultists during elections and highlighted the role of dysfunctional homes in contributing to cultism.
The police boss maintained that security should not be a one-man affair and called for synergy in combating crime.
He underscored the vital importance of families and schools in preventing cultism and other crimes, calling for collaborative efforts between those institutions and security agencies to tackle the issue head-on.
The summit was attended by security stakeholders in the state such as Francis Nnadi, Dep Commandant Civil Defence; Onyeka Nwachukwu, Director, DSS; CP, Nnaghe Obono Itam and Tochukwu Ikenga, PRO, Anambra Police Command; as well as Ezinano women who turned up in their numbers.
