Cultism trends as 61 secondary school students get snake bite initiation in Asaba, Delta state.
The meeting scheduled for Monday did not materialise after the national leadership issued a statement instructing its structures to boycott it.
In a statement, Sanco’s national leadership said they wanted to speak about issues related to the ANC’s parachuting of councillors without community concerns and other matters.
“The ANC decided to undermine us by ignoring matters that are affecting our communities. They only told us that they wanted to meet us on Monday to discuss the plan for next year’s general elections. We decided to withdraw from the meeting because the ANC is undermining us,” according to a statement.
The Commissioner for Information, Delta State, Mr Charles Aniagwu, has warned that the state government will shut secondary schools engaged in alleged cultism.
This warning follows the recent revelation that some secondary school students are being initiated into cultism through an act known as ‘snake bite’ where a student is allegedly marked on the back of their palm indicating their initiation.
The commissioner said the government would not hesitate to shut down any school where students engage in cult-related activities, adding that the Ministry of Education also plans to increase its supervisory role to end the trend. Aniagwu added that any student found guilty would be punished accordingly.
“What we are suffering today flows from the failure of parents of yesterday, so parents of today must avoid such pitfalls.
“Beyond the fact that we have asked the supervisory ministry to increase supervision, the authority in any school where cultism is found will be called to answer,’’ Aniagwu stressed.
The command therefore urges parents to be calm and ignore the false claim making the rounds, also, it is noteworthy that any right thinking person who noticed such a trend ordinarily will go into proper investigation and also inform the police to investigate before posting on social media. It is again advised that the false publication should not be taken seriously.”
The police also released video clips of the statements by the pupils, the mother, and the clip of the act being carried out on the hands of the PPRO.
To tackle what the Command considered as rumours, the police gave out CONTROL ROOM NUMBERS.
The statement added: “The command wishes to state as follows; On receipt of the video clip, the commissioner of Police, CP Wale Abass, immediately directed the Area Commander Asaba, ACP Sunday Oladipo and the command public relations officer, DSP Edafe Bright to proceed to the school for an on the spot investigation. On arrival at the school premises, the school pupils, teacher, and one of the parents were interrogated. A mother to one of the affected children stated that her children said it was a game in the school tagged ‘snake bite’ and nothing more to it. The PPRO probed further to ascertain the claim and interviewed the school pupil, which led to an interesting discovery. One Uche surname unknown aged 9 years told his younger brother, known as Emeka, surname unknown aged 6yrs about the game called ‘snake bite’ and the younger brother obliged. When the said Uche was asked how it was done, he said it’s a piece of paper that is used to do it. The PPRO then asked if it could be done on him, and the child accepted. The PPRO offered his hands, and the child used a small white paper to rub the back of his palm, which gave rise to the exact mark on the same spot that is being wrongly portrayed as cult initiation. It became clear that it is a harmless trend among school children and not a cult initiation process as it was wrongly portrayed by the said activist.
