Ben Oguntuase is a prime example of being a systematic victim of the mischief of Wole Soyinka and the Pyrates Confraternity. A very bright and energetic graduate of petroleum engineering from the Universities of Ibadan (Nigeria) and Louisiana (USA), Big Ben as he was often called, quickly rose through the ranks of National Oil plc (an oil marketing concern). And was a star in the corporate class of Nigeria. By the late 1990s, he had become the Capoon of the Pyrates Confraternity (a.k.a. National Association of Seadogs International). One thing he tried to achieve as the Pyrates Capoon was to eliminate the heinous and proliferating incidences of University Campus Grown Fraternities’ (UCGF) violence causing death, mayhem and ruin to the lives of so many young higher education students across the country. It was a great national concern of the day which persists. As noble as this quest of Ben Oguntuase was, it cost him his brilliant career at the singular order of Wole Soyinka.
It is almost a rule that as a member of the public you will encounter UCGFs (University Campus Grown Fraternities) and their members vehemently deny that they are cults or cult members, respectively, in any personal or media platform available to them. One would think that such is a practice of mere or strong ‘cult denialism’ because of the negative image it conjures in the minds of members of the public? Wrong.
In everyday Nigerian parlance, the dreaded word “cult” is habitually conflated and interchanged with the word the “occult”. It is where the mistake begins. As such many UCGF members and members of the public have not taken the time to find out what a cult is and are not aware they or those they love may be members of cults by proper definition and implication. Many cults are very secular and do not practice any religious, spiritual, magical or esoteric beliefs. Occultism is not a core characteristic of a cult at all.
Agnotologics, ponerologics, repression, oppression, absurdity, deception and toxic entitlement all rolled into one is the mark of decadence, filth and wickedness in practice but in the name of ‘fighting the ills of society’ and being a born-again ‘service organisation’. That is distinguishing, yet the persuasive lie of the university grown campus fraternity (UCGF).
