Publisher and Editor of The Daily News,a blog popularly known as TDN, Mr. Ukorebi Esien has insisted the cross river state commissioner for youths and sport Development was wrong to have said he is not against cultism.
reacting to comments following his publications on the above subject matter, Mr. Ukorebi said the Commissioner should apologize or withdraw his statement and come out clean in the fight against cultism in the state and stop playing about with sensitive words that have been abased.
recall that TDN had on the 3rd of August made two publications concerning a statement accredited to the Commissioner of youth and Sport Development in Cross River state. In the publications, the commissioner was alleged to have made a public statement in support of cultism while addressing a crowd of University of Calabar students who invited him to speak to them in their on going students' week celebration.
The commissioner was reported to have said “I am not against cultism because it offers you an opportunity to
associate and make friends, what I am against is the raising of arms against
each other.”
Read the story here: I’m not against cultism, C’river youth commissioner drums support for cultism https://thedailynewsng.blogspot.com/2017/08/im-not-against-cultism-criver-youth.html
Read the story here: C’river state Youth commissioner makes frantic effort to defend self as Youths react to his “I am not against cultism” statement https://thedailynewsng.blogspot.com/2017/08/criver-state-youth-commissioner-makes.html
Cross Riverians had made several comments about the statement of the Honorable commissioner with some saying that the author misinterpreted the commissioner out of context, while others claim that the publications from TDN were malicious and stemmed out of mere jealousy. These had made the author of both publications to put up this article in support of his two previous publications.
" I wonder why people will just accept anything
as an excuse for making unjustified statements.
Whatever excuse Asu Okang has for saying he
is not against cultism doesn’t hold water. What does it mean to read in-between
the lines if not what has just been done?
When he made that statement what was the
reaction of the same crowd he was addressing?
For those who thinks Asu Okang was misquoted,
please can you tell us was cultism is?
According to https://en.oxforddictionaries.com
a cult is
1. A system of religious
veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object.
2. A relatively small group of people
having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or as
imposing excessive control over members.
3. A misplaced or excessive admiration for
a particular thing.
Now which of the above definitions was Asu
Okang referring to when he said “I am not against Cultism…”
Off course he will say he was refering the
first definition.
According to his explanations, it could be
deduced that he was advising cultist to practice cultism as it is defined in
definition number one above.
I may not know if that was what he meant or
not because I am not in his mind, where I have issues with his statements and
this is where I drew my report from is that he actually miss led his audience.
Asu okang should know that he is a public
figure and represents the youths which are said to be at the center of
restiveness, thus saying anything that looks like a nod will actually mean a
nod to most of them.
Our system has so much bastardize or debased
the word cultism to the extent that mere mentioning it makes you receive one queer
look from listeners.
Asu cannot fathom the impression he has created
on most of those young minds that were there to listen to him. Going by his
words, I can as well deduced that the message he passed across to those teeming crowd, was if you
are told to join a cult group that do not take up arms nor shed blood, please you
are at liberty to accept their invitation because it will help make new friends
and associate.
Is that it?
My point here is that Asu Okang being a
serving government official whose ministry is supposed to be at the fore front
of combating and eradicating cultism in the state should not be found wanting
in anywhere especially as regards the above subject matter. He should come out
clean and fight cultism to a standstill and not dance around with words.
Our system have so debased the word cult or
cultism or anything related to it that we don’t have to joke around with the
word talk more of saying we love or we are not against it.
If he were to be addressing a different
society who have vast definition or understanding of the word that would have
been okay, but he was addressing a mixed crowd of members and non-members.
Asu should rather apologize for or withdraw
his statement and not try to paint black white. The truth is that there is no
better way he would have said what he said. The best thing was to have totally condemned
and advice his audience against it.
Lets all join hands with the governor Ben
Ayade’s Administration and fight cultism out of the state."
TDN Correspondent
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