By Kamil Opeyemi
The Enugu State Command of the Nigeria Police Force has arrested 18 teenage cultists during their initiations in one of the bushes in the state.
Parading the suspects at the state police headquarters on Wednesday, the state Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Ammani, advised parents to take responsibility for their children’s upbringing to ensure that they do not take to delinquent behaviours.
Ammani urged parents to join hands with the police and other constituted authorities in the state to check teenager delinquency.
The teenagers (15 male and three female) were caught doing cult initiations in one of the bushes in Enugu State at about 12 noon on March 12 by the Anti-Cult Squad of the Police Command.
He cautioned parents on the need to ensure that they were not caught in the web of the state law that states that parents would be held liable for any wrong doing by any child or ward under their care.
Ammani said that it baffles the officers in the command how children between the ages of 14 and 17 years find pleasure in belonging to cult groups or confraternity groups.
According to him, they were caught red handed with matchets, knives and other dangerous weapons as they entered the process of initiating themselves into cultism.
He said: “The astonishing revelation by these children led to the invitation of their parents to the Command.
“Parents should take parenting and character moulding of these children seriously and ensure they do not turn out to be a menace to the society.
“Presently, these teenagers will turn out within a few years to be great terrors to peace-loving people of the state, some turning to armed robbers, highway robbers, kidnappers and murderers.
The commissioner said that parents would sign undertaking to take good parental care of the children as well as make a periodic report on them as it concerns their change of character and being obedient at home.