Wusu Babatunji –
Cultism in Rivers State has been a primary concern for all security stakeholders as it is not a stand-alone phenomenon. With it comes other social ills and crimes, such as armed robbery, kidnapping, substance abuse, etc. The coalescence of various individuals with varying degrees of criminal capacity contributes to the boundless troubles that cultism poses.
Little wonder the Rivers State Police Command has taken a firm stand against cultism. Under the remarkable leadership of an operational Commissioner of Police, CP Olatunji Rilwan Disu, psc, the command is gaining ground in the brazen fight against cultism in Rivers State.
Among the numerous arrests of suspected cultists, a noteworthy one is the arrest of one Gift Justice Hart, a 20-year-old indigene of Bonny Local Government Area and a confessed member of the Dey-Bam cult group.
Gift is a child born out of wedlock and lives with his mother and her partner from Green Compound. He said he had no relationship with his biological father, even though he had seen him on a few occasions and had a knowledge of where he lived. His mother had catered for him and his education since he was born.
After finishing his secondary education at Community Secondary School Bonny, he enrolled in a scaffolding workshop at Berger Road, Bonny, under the tutelage of a famous scaffold trainer, Mina. While undergoing the training, he met another trainee, Raphael Green, with whom he forged a friendship.
The friendship bond became stronger when they realised they had similar situations at home. Raphael was also living with his mother, who was in a relationship with another man from Peter-side compound who was not his father, and that relationship yielded four children. This was in addition to the three children she had gotten from another man from the Pepple compound.
The young men also had similarities in the condition that both their mothers were physically assaulted by their partners.
Raphael, feeling the need to protect his mother from her partner, went to speak with some of his old classmates at Bonny National Grammar School who were notorious cultists. They offered to ‘blend’ him into their cult group, Dey-Bam, and he eagerly consented.
They took him to the Bonny Sand filled on a select night, where he was blindfolded and badly beaten before he was given a gin mixed with blood. There, his journey of cultism began at the tender age of 18. He proceeded to reveal his identity to his mother’s partner and threatened to hurt him if the beating continued. The mother’s partner has since left the mother.
For Gift, his foray into cultism started a year after Raphael. He was particularly frustrated that he could not confront his mother’s partner, Biowuma. Biouwuma was a cult leader in the Iceland cult group and was notorious for coordinating cult activities in the Bonny Local Government Area. He was a feared person, and Gift decided to join a rival cult group so that he could match him.
He stated to the Police that after his final WAEC SSCE paper at age 17, he went to one Idamina in Green compound, a senior member of Dey-Bam cultist in Bonny Local Government and demanded to be onboarded. His demand was accepted, and he was initiated at the Bonny Sand-filled.
After he recovered from the initiation, he immediately confronted Biowuma, who laughed off his confrontation and warned him sternly to stay out of his business. As the tension between him and his mother’s live-in partner grew, Gift later left his mother’s house to live with Raphael and other members of the Dey-Bam group.
On a separate day, Biowuma had an altercation with Gift’s mother and proceeded to beat her up. When Gift got wind of it, he visited his mother’s house and fought with him. In the fight, he attacked him with a stick and broke his head in the process. He ran off after the fight, but his mother’s partner continued to search for him to retaliate.
However, in September 2023, Biowuma was arrested for leading members of the Iceland cult to steal construction equipment from the Local Government Council, and he was incarcerated after trial.
That spared Gift a reprisal attack but did not prevent the Police from Nabbing him, Raphael, and other Dey-Bam cultists after a cult clash between rival cult groups, Iceland and Dey-Bam, in Bonny left a victim brutally amputated on his left wrist.
The Police had used intelligence-led policing to locate the hideouts of the cultists, and on February 21, 2024, stormed the residence where the young men lived with other Dey-Bam cultists.
They were arrested and taken to the Bonny Division of the Rivers State Police Command and later transferred to the Anti-Cultism Unit.
Investigations are ongoing, and the suspects have been cooperative.
Reacting to this development, the Commissioner of Police, Rivers State Police Command, CP, Olatunji Disu, has expressed concern over the increasing relationship between dysfunctional homes and crime. He noted that, like Gift and Raphael, a significant number of criminals had a troubled childhood.
He charged parents/guardians with modelling good behaviour to their children/wards at all stages of their development, as the home is the most significant agent of socialisation.
He further gave a warning to all cultists in the state that the Rivers State Police is resolved to clamp them down.
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