Kunle ADELABU
Hon Sanai Agunbiade, the Majority Leader, Lagos State House of Assembly
The Majority Leader, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Sanai Agunbiade, has assured that the issue of cult related crisis would be tackled with the review of the anti-cultism law in the state.
The ranking lawmaker lamented the unfortunate incident affecting various parts of the state and described the development as gang wars during the visit of members of the Ikorodu Division Youth Movement to his constituency office in Ikorodu on Sunday, May 12, 2019.
The Executive Director of the movement, Comrade Samson Bisiriyu, had in his submission sought to know the effort the government is making in addressing the menace that has claimed many lives of innocent residents and members of the rival cult groups in Ikorodu and which has also badly affected the socio-economic activities of the community.
Hon. Agunbiade, who assured the youths that the issue will be effectively addressed, added that he has been meeting with stakeholders on the matter.
He stated that the cultism issue should be seen and addressed as collective responsibility if it is going to be effectively curtailed.
“I want to assure you that we have been meeting on this sad development that is also affecting other parts of the state. Just yesterday (Saturday, May 11), I was at a meeting with some people to discuss how to profer solutions to the situation.
“There is a law on cultism in the state that we are working to review. We are going to see to it that the penalties that are in the law are reviewed upwardly to effectively deterred these gangs.
“The same way we used the force of law to curtail land grabbing activities, these new law, when eventually reviewed, would curtail the activities of these gangs parading themselves as cultists. They should just say bye to their families once caught and prosecuted.
Speaking further on the issue which has permeated the fabrics of the society, Hon Agunbiade stated:
“The issue has degenerated and it will be very difficult to eradicate it. To address the menace, we must all work collectively to stem it.
“It is a collective responsibility. The antidote is not to cast them away but to make them see reason that gangsterism will lead them to nowhere but to perdition.
“If you kill by the sword, you will die by the sword”, he said quoting the Holy Book.
Also, while blaming the youths and the society, Agunbiade stated that most cultists are known to their friends and families but they are not doing anything about them .
“It will be difficult to pick two innocent people out of ten youths in Ikorodu who are not involved in cultism. If the remaining eight are not directly guilty, they would be guilty indirectly.
“Many of those guys are your friends and relatives whom you know about their involvements in cultism, what are you doing about it?”, he asked.
“Like ritual killings, Badoo and others that we have faced in recent time, cultism is another challenge that we have to deal with. It will fizzle out like these other challenges if we collectively rise up to it as a people”, he challenged.
Speaking earlier at the parley, Comrade Bisiriyu had asked the ranking lawmaker that:
“As youths representatives, we are also concerned about the killings in Ikorodu by the cultists. Many of the victims, either innocent or members of the rival cult groups, are youths like us. I read in THE IMPACT newspaper about the recent killings where two innocent people were killed and one of them was an accountant. More so, the ugly incident is affecting the image of Ikorodu negatively .
“We want to know what you are doing about it as our elected representative and what the government is also doing about it or intends to do about it”, he added.
