By Brave Dickson
An international non-governmental organization known as Search For Common Ground (SFCG) has again met with residents of Idango-Ama community within the Marine Base axis of Port Harcourt to end the scourge of cultism through intellectual means.
The meeting which Search For Common Ground tagged, “Community Security Architecture Dialogue” was able to identify various causes, solutions, as well as key action, points to end cultism by participants as follows-
Causes:
1) Poverty.
2) Unemployment.
3) Neglect of the youths after being used especially by politicians.
4) Poor parental upbringing.
5) Drug abuse.
6) Peer pressure.
7) Desperate political ambition and
8) Ignorance.
Solutions:
1) The government should provide skills training and empowerments for the youths.
2) Government and security agencies should sincerely enforce the laws against criminality.
3) Political office holders’ accountability and
4) To adopt the spiritual approach of prayers to seek God’s face against cultism.
Action points:
1) To articulate voices as a community to draw the government’s attention.
2) To embark on community orientation to speak to the conscience of the youths.
3) To build a support group for penitent cultists to help bring out the cultists in the community and
4) Continuous town hall meeting to sensitize community members on the evil effect of cultism.
Speaking to our correspondent at the end of the meeting which was held on Friday in Port Harcourt, Elder Daju Emma Atamuno who doubles as Chairman, Community Development Committee of Idango-Ama in Marine Base and for the Community Security Architecture Dialogue said, “today’s meeting further equipped us to prioritize peace in our community.
“We also learnt the need to keep our immediate and extended families peaceful and to help each other.
“I thank SFCG for the enormous peace it has brought to our community through its peacebuilding programmes.”
Earlier, the Rivers State Coordinator, Search For Common Ground, Mr Cosmos Dinee maintained that intellectual engagement is capable of tackling cultism in the area.
“These cultists are human beings that can change positively if everybody agrees to come together to stop it.
Showing them love will also go along way in bringing them out of cultism, hence all participants should be positive agents in your various families and communities, Mr Dinee said.
It may interest you to know that the just concluded security dialogue meeting is one of the platforms Search For Common Ground had recently embarked on at the local government level to provide opportunities for dialogue processes with the aim of preventing violent conflict.
Available statistics have it that in all the three LGAs of Gokana, Port Harcourt City and Okrika where SFCG is carrying out this peacebuilding drive, cultism has been identified by participants as the major cause of violence.
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