A society is primarily known by its culture and culture encapsulates the whole gamut of a society’s experience ranging from their language to their beliefs, food, customs and their frame of reference.
To be succinct, culture is the mirror of any given society. But it is sad to know that there are still cultural practices in Africa that are out of sync with the dictates of civilization, that are barbaric in nature, oppressive in application and repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience. One of such practices is occultism being practiced under the guise of cultural groups and societies.
Report reaching our news desk from Benin City the Edo State capital has it that occultism or its related issues is behind the sudden disappearance of one Wilson Okungbowa.
The said Wilson Okungbowa, according to our investigation, lost his father when he was about nine years of age and only recently returned back home after a long sojourn in Lagos and Kano where he was said to have been involved in street begging and petty trading following the penury his mother was thrown into as a result of the death of his father.
The young man shortly upon his return home, was said to have been approached by a group of strange looking men dressed in flowing red clothing. According to a source that pleaded anonymity, the men told the said Wilson Okungbowa that his father was a member of their secret society (name withheld) and that it was customary for the eldest surviving son of a deceased member to be initiated into their occult society and that they have been patiently waiting for his return all these years.
The young man has vehemently opposed joining their group objecting on his Christian faith and his freedom of association, but the group of men dressed in red has straightforwardly told him he has no choice in the matter that his late father had already made that choice for him and that the repercussion of not joining them was death.
Our source further reveals that not long after this encounter, members of the occult group stormed the house of the said Wilson Okungbowa but the young man was not at home and got wind of the attack, this prompted his disappearance.
As at press time, the whereabouts of the said Wilson Okungbowa has not been ascertained as he is rumoured to have fled the country for fear of his life.
The plague of cultism ravaging the nation seems not to be abating, if anything, it is on the increase. Law enforcement agencies appear helpless or even complicit in it as they belong to one secret society or the other thereby making the fight against cultism lopsided and half-hearted.
Meanwhile, from the various campuses of learning blood continues to flow as young lives and limps are lost to cultism.
The fabric of our society seems to have fallen apart and life here as reverted back to Thomas Hobbes’ State of nature where life was solitary, nasty, brutish and shot.
