GOVERNOR MONDAY OKPEBHOLO AND THE HEFTY COST OF CULTISM IN EDO STATE

By Hon. Paul Ohonbamu

Commissioner for Information and Communications released a statement; When Governor Okpebholo assumed office on the 12th of November 2024, he met a State that was at war with itself. In fact, he inherited several social maladies and other life-threatening vices including armed robbery, kidnapping with cultism at the apex of the pyramid.

With continuous and senseless killings by various cult groups, Edo State became an abattoir of human souls. The former Governor Godwin Obaseki did nothing to stem the tide. He just watched in helpless emasculated impotence.

The existing law, which was the “Secret Cult Prohibition Law of 2018” was a half-hearted attempt to arresting the situation. It was like a slap on the wrist. Governor Monday Okpebholo came and saw the need for a proactive action which he did by first putting an end to the killings and then took a critical look at the legal framework.

The 2018 Law by Obaseki was such that cannot be amended; hence it was repealed by the Edo State House of Assembly. The new Law which is the ‘Secret Cult and Similar Activities Prohibition Law 2025’, by Governor Monday Okpebholo is clear from its provisions on what it wants to achieve.

The Governor’s action is well-intentioned and deliberate. He wants to make Edo State safe and peaceful for all. The Law captures all in the chain of activities contrary to what gives peaceful repose or tranquility to the conscience of the society.

This includes the actual perpetrators or executioners of violence, the masterminds, the sponsors and even those who provide cover-ups. They risk imprisonment of twenty-one years to at least ten years and in the event of fatality even death.

They also risk the possibility of their residence, or any property attached to their name being confiscated or demolished by the State Government. This is the effect of the combination of Section 5, 6, and 12 of the Law.

The Law says “And Similar Activities”; for the avoidance of doubt, this Law targets other sundry negative activities; people who are not cultists simpliciter, but engage in acts whose effects are either similar or diametrically the same with those of cultists are also covered by the Law.

People who control guns, and yet cannot shoot; people who upturn justice and yet recommend the Law. These are the glamour cultists or bandits. They gave birth to the forested ones. The Law covers them.

Then people who subscribe to subterranean values; people who adopt violence as their principal weapon of choice in interaction. People who are obstinate at heart and malevolent in intent as well as people who tolerate or encourage violence are all covered by the Law.

We must commend the Governor of Edo State, Senator Monday Okpebholo who knows the burden that the Constitution places on him. The security and welfare of the people is the primary purpose of government.

Governor Monday Okpebholo has risen to the challenge and this Law is a testament. Senator Monday Okpebholo knows that the welfare of the people would be rendered nugatory without security, just as the constitutional right to life is meaningless without the corresponding right to earn a learning. This is why apart from infrastructure and enabling environment for business to thrive, the Governor has also started employment of Edo People into the Civil Service of the State.

Employment is nature’s physician and very important to mankind. All must therefore hail Governor Monday Okpebholo for his determination to turn Edo State into what Rogers Robinson calls ‘Portable Paradise’.

What the former Governor slept over, this Governor is determined in his resolve to put right, because he is the only one that can do it. He cannot abdicate that responsibility for any other person.

This brings to the fore what Shakespeare said ” If correction lies in the hand that committed wrong, to who shall we complain.” Correction laid in the hands of the former Governor Godwin Obaseki which he could not correct.

Here is Monday Okpebholo putting right the wrong of Obaseki. The first criterion of anybody who wanted to be part of the Edo State Security Network in Obaseki’s time was to own a gun. A man who owns a gun can use it for sundry things including illegalities . The question as to how he got the gun was never an issue.

The net effect was a State where madmen became specialists and specialists became madmen, apology to Wole Soyinka’s Play, Specialists and Madmen.

Okpebholo’s pattern of recruitment into the State Security Network is different and very civilized. The body is headed by a retired Commissioner of Police, Mr. Friday Ibadin to show the seriousness of the matter. That explained why in the last administration all manner of people dominated the space; all that has changed now.

The State is free from savages, cannibals and people belonging to the night of first ages. This is part of the reasons for this law to ensure a safe and peaceful Edo State. Okpebholo believes that to enact a barbaric law is to endorse a barbaric society.

We must join him to reinvent the Edo of our dream. Good enough, punishment awaits all persons who transgress the present Law, even those who think themselves gorgeous rebels like Satan in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Governor Monday Okpebholo is following the admonition of the Greek Playwright Sophocles ” Thou shall not ration justice, where the offence lies let the great axe fall.”