Having said that, this particular blog is not meant to attack the personality of Wole Soyinka, it is just to put some record straight
The citation of the video read thus ‘In Nigeria, University fraternities have taken on brutal extremes. Students are being murdered and defiled with impunity by vicious cult members’.
According to Soyinka, ‘the cults today’s idea of students fraternity are gradually destroying the nation intellectual heartland. The so called fraternity today are nothing but gangs of thugs, drug addicts, killers who terrorize their fellow students, faculties, entire campus workers and citizen outside the campuses’
Be that as it may, there is a need here to define here the term cult and confraternity, so that we do not throw the baby and the dirty water away;
and this will shed more light on these people that paraded themselves as cult or confraternity members.
Cult or cultism can be define ‘as a system of religious worship or ritual; or a quasi-religious group, often living in a colony, with a charismatic leader who indoctrinates members with unorthodox or extremist views, practices, or beliefs or a group of followers; sect’.
While Confraternity, according to Oxford dictionary can be define as ‘A brotherhood, especially with a charitable or religious purpose’
With the above definitions, it shows clearly that the groups of people that perpetrated the killing in our post secondary schools in Nigeria do not belong to any of the two; they are just killer groups, terrorists, ritualists and gang of evil doers that kill for fun which needs to be wiped out completely.
According to Professor Soyinka, ‘Black Axe like Eiye have earned the reputation of the most notorious of the campuses cult!’.On this particular statement, i beg to disagree with our ‘godfather’.
Like Pyrate Confraternity, The Supreme Eiye Confraternity a.k.a National Association Of Airlords was formed by the group of modest background like our Wole Soyinka at the prestigious University of Ibadan in 1965 as a GENUINE desire to be free from BONDAGE,ILL-CONCEIVED REGULATION and OBNOXIOUS TABOO..........life of FREEDOM and UNRESTRICTED EXPRESSION...........its adhere to the principle of doing what was natural .FREEDOM was the name of the game.
The founders are as follows: TUNDE ALUKO-Consultant/Businessman, SEGUN IDOWU-Civil Servant, JIDE OSUNTOKUN-Historian/Diplomat..DELE NWAKPELE-Lecturer, FOLABI EPEGA –Businessman, BODE FADARE -Oil Industrialist, BAYO ADENUBI -Bank Executive, GOKE ADENIJI –LIBRARIAN (first IBAKA),and .DELE LIPEDE -Physician
The Supreme Eiye confraternity is not a CULT group but a PURE BROTHERHOOD association that was formed to promote: to build a better personality, mental development, correct the ills of the society, physical &mental development,
Instils discipline and mould a social & political mind
Confraternities are not the same as murderous secret cults. You will find student confraternities in almost every university in the world. They are social and intellectual associations. Why should Soyinka be blamed himself if today’s students in Nigeria have pervaded a time-honoured university tradition?
As Professor Wole Soyinka rightly said, ‘The society is dehumanised by the decades of military dictatorship, looting of oil money and enthronement of brute power’
My sincere advice to the youth in our citadel of higher learning is that you must get education. Come together and stop killing yourselves. Direct your anger to fight against our corrupt leaders and change our country to better your future. Killings are not part of confraternity, Ata.
