SEGUN AYINDE, ABEOKUTA
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the Ogun State branch of the
National Association of Seadogs, popularly called Pyrates’ Confraternity, has urged Nigerians to obtain their Permanent Voter Cards and ensure they troop out on election days to vote and monitor the ballot to prevent cultists and political thugs from hijacking ballot boxes from polling units.
State President of NAS, Adeyemi Omitogun, gave this advice during the organisation’s Feast Of Barracuda Public Lecture which had the theme, “Gangsterism, Hooliganism & Cultism in Nigeria : Role of the Family,” held at the Pyrates’ Confraternity’s Ash Montana Permanent Anchor Point, Gbonogun, Abeokuta, the state capital.
Guest Speaker at the lecture, Prof. Adegbemi Babatunde Onakoya, who is also a former Secretary to the Ogun State Government under the Otunba Gbenga Daniel administration, spoke virtually on the ills of cultism and hooliganism in the country.
He, however, identified economic sustainability as a solution to reducing the menace.
Omitogun, while encouraging Nigerians to come out to exercise their franchise and stand by their votes after voting, said that such action would not only hinder cultists or hoodlums employed by bad politicians from snatching ballot boxes at their polling units, but would also make their votes count.
He admonished the citizenry to bury the idea of “our votes don’t count,” which, according to him, will only embolden bad politicians using cultists and political thugs to hijack ballot boxes to continue to perpetrate their evil acts and win elections.
The state president, who charged participants to go home and inform their family members of the need to register and collect their PVCs to enable them to vote in the 2023 elections, added that NAS has an advocacy monitoring group whose duty is to ensure that Nigerians’ votes count in any election.
He pointed out economic sustainability and family role as major factors that could reduce the ills of cultism and gangsterism in the society, especially when fathers own up to their responsibility to inculcate morals in their children and advise them to shun cultism in schools.
He said, “We all need to ensure that our PVC is gotten and we are all registered to vote because if you say election doesn’t count, we realise that we will be giving a chance to those people that have evil thoughts to succeed. But if at all we want to do it better, let’s go back home and tell our folks and family that all of them should get registered and be involved in this election.
“It is not just to get involved in it, we need to be there, we need to be part of the system, we need to ensure that we vote and our vote is being counted in our presence, then now leave it to the government. The truth of the matter is that personally, we, National Association of Seadogs, have our advocacy group on our votes count. We are part of the electoral monitoring team and whatever vices that is being noted, we send it to the public. But I can assure you that with what we are having now, let all of us to be encourage to be part of the system.
“It is about economic sustainability, the youth having the hope that they can get something in the future and having the right model, not just this gangsterism or hooliganism. Let us be schooled, not just go back to school and no matter what you, don’t need to join cultism before you become somebody. Cultism is even a vice in the society and one of the ills the National Association of Seadogs has identified in the society.
Omitogun further said, “There should the role of the family, and a father figure, not just abandoning the children out there. When you are a father figure, when you give them good home training, they have a cultural background. I am sure that they won’t go out there to join cult or bad gang.”