The Speaker of Cross River State House of Assembly, Hon Eteng Williams, has alleged that some traditional rulers in the State are members of cult groups.
Speaking at a one-day security summit organized by Sparking 92.3FM in Calabar on Thursday, the Speaker alleged “Our Chiefs are now part of cultism, they are cultists and how do you expect a village head who is a cultist in a village to arrest or report a cultist,” he asked.
The Speaker, who was represented by Hon Hilary Bisong, Boki 11 State Constituency said, “Let us be sincere to ourselves, how do you expect us not to have security challenges when we don’t have democratically elected structures.
“Compare our security challenges to day and before, then, there was no serious security issue. Unless we have democratically elected institution in our local government councils, we will continue to have security challenges.
“We don’t have meeting on security at our local government areas any longer, our traditional rulers no longer hold security meetings, and they don’t discuss any security issues again.”
The Speaker noted that if the state has democratically elected institution in place in local government areas, they will take responsibility of our security at that level of governance and it will extend to state and federal.
“In local government councils, there is security committee, they have security votes, the council meet regularly, in fact every Monday but that is no longer happening, so why will we not have security issues or break down of law and order.
“In local government area, we have standing committee, call peace committee, whenever there is farming season; this committee will interfaced with other villages, move round sensitising the people on peace, we don’t have such again” he lamented.
He said that the State security architecture is near collapse, “The security is failing in the State, there is no week we don’t have report of matter of urgent public importance brought in by members about security in their constituencies.
“We have passed several security laws, we have done our part, we provided the anti kidnapping bills since 2015, that bill have been gazetted, there is provision that says the state Chief Judge should designate a Special Court for kidnapping, that has not been done, Cross River State has become a fertile ground for kidnapping, we don’t have the political will and capacity to fight cultism” he said.
Addressing the participants drawn from all security agencies including Police, NDLEA, Civil Defence, 960 Degree, Academia, Government and others, the General Manager of Sparkling 92.3FM Calabar, Mr Effiong Nyong said he was excited to have the privilege of welcoming everyone at the maiden edition of Sparkling FM security summit.
“Gathered here are key members of the academia, security, business community, the press and other stakeholders that in one way or the other have responsibilities to this society that we have found ourselves in.
He said people may have wondered why this station has decided to engage in an occasion such as this, “I would like to draw your attention to our news slogan that says “security is everybody’s business and if you see something say some for a better Cross River.
“What this means is that everyone; individuals and organisations, are critical in the fight against crime and insecurity because it affects us all. We can all agree that the government’s responsibility to protect lives and property, citizens must support government to achieve this aim”.
He pointed that there was no one who won’t feel better knowing that the safety of lives and property is guaranteed. “So as a station, that work with this diverse group on a regular basis, we have decided to go a step further.
“We are moving from saying something to doing something about a collective problem. The idea behind this summit is first to adopt a holistic and bird’s eye view of the challenges facing us as a state and proffer practical ways of solving them. And second is for stakeholders to properly understand their roles in the fight against insecurity,” he stressed.
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