Pyrates Confraternity isn’t a cult, says Soyinka

Noble laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who is believed to have co-founded the Pyrates Confraternity in Nigeria, has said that it was wrong to lump cultism with confraternity, arguing that the two were not the same.

Soyinka, who spoke in an interview with Zero Tolerance, a periodic publication by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, argued that belonging to confraternities is a normal culture in colleges and not an evil cult, as wrongly portrayed by ignorant persons in Nigeria.

Soyinka said: “Everybody knows that fraternities are a normal culture in all colleges. It exists in all colleges. President Clinton was a member of a fraternity. In fact, anybody who goes to college in the United States is a member of a college fraternity. There is absolutely nothing evil or occultic about fraternity.

“But here, the media is largely responsible for fuelling the ignorance of society of the words ‘cultism’ and ‘fraternity’. This is a disservice and I have said it again and again. There are evil cults, whose members must prove themselves by going to rape.

There are others whose entry is to slash or eat somebody or rob; it has nothing to do with college

fraternity. “The media owes the responsibility to constantly tell the public the truth. But they go on and children grow up, believing that college fraternity is Satanic, demonic and this is wrong.”