₦airaland Forum

Pierced:
Not really......but most of them are affiliated with one cult or another.

So if u are joining.... don't expect to be neutral as most of them are members of a cult group and will be planning on recuiting u.

That girl is not anything, she was never a cultist, don't get it twisted.

Corruption is widespread in modern Nigeria, and brazen: when asked why $100,000 disappeared from state coffers last year, one employee of a government education authority claimed a snake had eaten it. Unemployment is at 23 percent. Radio advertisements beg women not to have more children, as the state fumbles for solutions to a population boom set to make Nigeria the world’s third largest country by 2050.

Educated young people often find that no opportunities await them upon graduation. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s five richest men have enough money to end extreme poverty altogether, in a country where 112 million people live below the poverty line. Politicians often live like feudal overlords, traveling in a style that even Mansa Musa would envy. Amid such inequality, the get-­rich-­quick call of the cults is powerful. Nigerians have fallen into a “lotto culture,” said Sowore. “You keep playing until you win. But you never will.”

Felix Kupa, the new head of N.B.M., has striven to show a softer, more beneficent side of the organization. (Kupa declined to be interviewed for this story.) He has launched programs promoting resettlement for refugees and legal aid for prisoners. A $1.38 million vocational center is being planned for Benin City, where young Nigerians will be able to learn trades and leadership skills, and educate themselves in African history.

With the help of elders such as Amadasu, Kupa is also working to log every N.B.M. member in a database, including personal details and fingerprints. Since last May, the movement has worked with a Lagos consultancy to develop an app with which it can track personal information. “If you are not willing to share your details with us, or with the authorities around the world, that means there is something criminal about you,” Melvin Richmond told me. It is unclear when the project will be completed.

Before I left Nigeria, I met John a second time, at an upscale café in a modern neighborhood on the edge of Lagos. It was hot and windy, and great clouds of construction dust whipped across the street outside. Beyond the café sat the old skyscrapers of Lagos Island, cloaked in smog and harmattan sand. John was dressed in black-­and-­yellow athletic gear and wore his hair in tight braids. He spoke louder and with more confidence than the first time we had met. He told me he could never fully leave the , but at least in Lagos he could step back, and slip seamlessly into the city’s sulfur-­choked bedlam. He lives on its perimeter with a girlfriend and works as a supplier for his mother’s construction company. He had begun teaching prisoners the dangers of cultism.
https://harpers.org/archive/2019/09/the--nigeria-neo-black-movement-africa/

Few Nigerians dare cross the . In 2017, Chief Okoi Obono-­Obla, a lawyer and aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, who returned to power in 2015, risked his life to do so. That summer, Obono-­Obla discovered that his twenty-­three-­year-­old nephew, Jude Iroegbu, a lively young man who hoped to join the Nigerian Air Force, had become a member of the Vikings. Alarmed, Obono-­Obla and around two dozen members of his extended family met at Iroegbu’s parents’ home in Ugep, a town in the Niger Delta state of Cross River. The relatives demanded that Iroegbu renounce his cult membership. He agreed.

A few days later, however, Axemen allegedly surrounded Iroegbu on a red-­dirt road outside the palace of the Obol Lopon, Ugep’s traditional king. They hacked him to the ground with machetes and knives. As Iroegbu lay bleeding in the mud, one of the men shot him in the chest.

On a balmy evening last February, I met Obono-­Obla at a bar in Abuja, where we spoke over a soundtrack of funky house. He speaks hurriedly and has an intense look, as if staring over your shoulder at a burning building. A few days after Iroegbu’s murder, Obono-­Obla wrote an open letter to the state’s governor, Ben Ayade, accusing more than twenty Axemen he had identified, via informants and social media, of the murder. Obono-­Obla urged Ayade to launch an investigation into the killing.

Several of the suspects were arrested, but Obono-­Obla told me the problem goes far beyond what happened to his nephew. On January 1, 2018, he organized an anti-­cult march in Calabar, Cross River’s capital city. Five thousand people participated, waving placards that read say no to cultism; say no to violence.

Obono-­Obla’s high status offered protection, but he still received death threats. As we spoke, he switched hurriedly between three cell phones, showing text messages to me. “I will deal with you,” read one. I asked Obono-­Obla how the could be stopped. He was unsure. Cults operate as a “state within a state,” he told me, just like America’s old mobs: “They can always buy their way. They can bribe the police, so people are not willing to come out and give evidence or testify against them.” Fighting police and judicial corruption could stem some bloodshed, Obono-­Obla told me. Until then, Nigeria can expect many more men like Iroegbu to die young.

John decided to lie low. Despite his plummeting grades, he graduated in 2011. But around that time Nigeria’s Drug Law Enforcement Agency raided his home three times. The first raid turned up nothing. During the second, the cops found drugs and issued a warrant for John’s arrest but did not pursue him. When the police came a third time, in 2012, John again was not home, but his housemates were jailed for three months on armed robbery charges. John decided it was too dangerous for him to stay in Jos. The day after that raid, he drove his Mercedes back to Ka­duna.

In October 2017, in Amsterdam, I met a financial crimes expert who blogs about the under the pseudonym Uche Tobias. It took me several months to earn his trust: we first exchanged text messages, then calls, then we met in another part of Western Europe before agreeing to meet in the Dutch capital. Tobias is amiable in person, if highly guarded, and chain-­smokes roll-­up cigarettes. As we sat in the restaurant of a small hotel overlooking Amsterdam’s red-­light district, Tobias showed me dozens of emails and documents he has gathered since 2011 that expose the movement’s global network of fraud.

Tobias has employed a number of methods to get information, the most successful of which has been to re­register Yahoo email accounts that members have recently stopped using, allowing him to pass as an Axeman. At first, Tobias’s interest in the group was professional. Soon, he recalled in a written message (Tobias would only go on record via email), he realized he was seeing “an international apparatus of fraud and money laundering on a truly industrial scale. It was fascinating.” By 2013, Tobias blogged regularly about his discoveries in a tone that veered from anxious to mocking: he often called members “Assmen,” parodying the homophobia he encountered among them. His work has earned him thousands of death threats.

After we met, Tobias sent me a selection of early files, most of which dated from around 2012. Some were boilerplate 419s. Others were more elaborate scams, including one in which somebody calling himself “Arata Kazuo,” alternately from Tokyo and Osaka, stole over $37,000 from a man in northern En­gland. Scammers generally choose targets in rich nations, and the addresses of potential marks in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany filled dozens of spreadsheet pages.

Police in Canada have learned more about how the network operates by investigating so-­called romance scams, in which bogus admirers charm elderly women into sending them cash, the value of which can reach seven figures. (Romance scams cost Canadians $17 million in 2018 alone.) They discovered that N.B.M. zones keep directories of each member’s strong name and location and the year that he bammed, which, they say, allows would-­be criminals to commit large, multi­national frauds.

Let’s say you initiate a scam in Montreal and reach out to members in your zone for somebody who is francophone to pose as a U.N., military, or government official to convince the target that their new suitor is in trouble and needs money. The zone replies: Lord Qaddafi in Chad Zone, who bammed in 2005, is great at romance scams. You connect. The scam is successful. The target sends $1,000,000 via a remittance firm. Now you need to launder the ­money. You reach out again. Somebody puts forward Lord Marcus Garvey in Dubai Zone. You connect. The money is received. Now it must be deposited in a bank in a country where regulation is scant. Lord Desmond Tutu has access to bank accounts in Shanghai Zone and receives the money from Dubai. Before the target realizes, the money has traveled across the world. Then it can be distributed among the members, each one taking home a percentage.

John’s scheme was to pose as the owner of a lottery, offering lucrative prizes in return for a few bank details. He camped out at the internet café of a seminary near his home, spending long afternoons sending thousands of messages to potential marks. He was good at it. By the end of his sophomore year, John owned a large sneaker collection and a Mercedes that he drove home between semesters. The profits were his: the only money John paid to the was the roughly 10,000 naira in dues, collected each semester. John’s twin brother grew suspicious. “The money my mom was sending at that time—there was no way in hell he would have a car,” he told me. “It just didn’t make any sense.”

On Saturdays, the Axemen of Jos often gathered at the soccer field of a government school, nestled among junkyards on the city’s northern limit, for a meeting called Point One. Typically the time was spent planning parties, airing grievances, or discussing beefs with rival cults. As an eye, John stood beside the touchline, watching for danger. One weekend in his first year, some nearby farmers began complaining about the commotion. John feared that one of them would call the cops, and he quickly told the chairman to order everybody out.

The Axemen, most of whom were carrying guns, dashed away to a small bar called Last Bus Stop, a local stronghold among market stalls in the city center. Minutes later a van rolled up to the field, packed with heavily armed police officers. Back at Last Bus Stop, everyone cheered and thanked John for engineering their escape. “I got a lot of props for that,” he told me. John was soon made chief eye, answerable only to the chairman and the priest. “I did really well in that post,” he added, proudly.

he new role placed him under greater scrutiny. Axemen fought ­daily with other cults. John was determined not to fall behind in his studies, but the campus was a conflict zone: he avoided traveling alone between lectures and had recurring dreams of rival cultists bursting into an exam hall and stabbing him to death. He retreated further into running 419 scams.

Some Axemen thrived in the mayhem. George was one of them, a “fun guy” from a town not far from Kaduna. George had charisma and style, and by his third year he’d become the zonal chairman—“the big man,” John told me. George was a skillful robber, too; he bought a car, a house, and a store with his loot. He and John got on well, but to others George was menacing. He could be “smiling, and cut you at the same time,” John said.

One night, John told me, cops cornered George and two others at a student dorm. John received a message from a fellow Axeman soon after and began calling members in the zone who worked as lawyers. But the cops allegedly took the three young men into the street and shot them all. The next morning, everybody gathered at Last Bus Stop to debrief. Some Axemen were already planning to “go vigilante”—to launch a revenge attack.

John grieved. He was terrified. He bought an arsenal of guns and imagined ways out of the . He knew only two: violent death and deaxeation, which required slicing off his right thumb, an escalation of a initiation ritual in which the thumb is merely cut. John had never heard of it happening in Jos, but he told me he’d seen one-thumbed former Axemen in Port Harcourt.

Eleven years ago, on a bitter January night, dozens of young men, dressed in a uniform of black berets, white T-­shirts, and black pants, gathered on a hill overlooking the Nigerian city of Jos, shouting, dancing, and shooting guns into the black sky. A drummer pounded a rhythmic beat. Amid the roiling crowd, five men crawled toward a candlelit dais, where a white-robed priest stood holding an axe. Leading them was John,1 a sophomore at the local college, powerfully built and baby-faced. Over the past six hours, he had been beaten and burned, trampled and taunted. He was exhausted. John looked out at the landscape beyond the priest. It was the harmattan season, when Saharan sand blots out the sky, and the city lights in the distance blurred in John’s eyes as if he were underwater.

John had been raised by a single mother in Kaduna, a hardscrabble city in Nigeria’s arid north. She’d worked all hours as a construction supplier, but the family still struggled to get by. Her three boys were left alone for long stretches, and they killed time hunting at a nearby lake while listening to American rap.

At seventeen, John had enrolled at the University of Jos to study business. Four hours southeast of his native Kaduna, Jos was another world, temperate and green. John’s mother sent him an allowance, and he made cash on the side rearing guard dogs for sale in Port Harcourt, the perilous capital of Nigeria’s oil industry. But it wasn’t much. John’s older brother, also studying in Jos, hung around with a group of Axemen—members of the fraternity—who partied hard and bought drugs and cars. Local media reported a flood of crimes that Axemen had allegedly committed, but his brother’s friends promised John that, were he to join the group, he wouldn’t be forced into anything illegal. He could just come to the parties, help out at the odd charity drive, and enjoy himself. It was up to him. John knew that the was into some “risky” stuff. But he thought it was worth it. Axemen were treated with respect and had connections to important people. Without a network, John’s chances of getting a good job post-­degree were almost nil.

In his second year, he decided to join, or “bam.” On the day of the initiation, John was given a shopping list: candles, bug spray, a kola nut (a caffeinated nut native to West Africa), razor blades, and 10,000 Nigerian naira (around thirty dollars)—his bamming fee. He carried it all to the top of the hill. Once night fell, Axemen made John and the other Nine initiates lie on their stomachs in the dirt, pressed toge­ther shoulder to shoulder, and hurled insults at them. They reeked like goats, some Axemen screamed. Others lashed them with sticks, cutlass. Each Axeman walked over their backs four times. Somebody lit the bug spray on fire, and ran the flames across them, “burning that goat stink from us,” John recalled.

When the spray was spent, the initiates formed two lines and crawled towards the dais. As John knelt, eyes shut, the priest uttered an oath and slapped him, signaling his purification. The priest placed the axe on his head and gave him his “strong name,” that of a famous African freedom fighter. John’s was Patrice Lumumba, after the Congolese politician murdered in 1961. Others knelt and were named, too: Marcus Garvey, Muammar Qaddafi, Usman dan Fodio, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. When the Nine were done, they rose to their feet. The mob cried: A cry for one is a cry for all.

The reply: Aiye!

The men who had tormented John for hours now embraced him. They passed him a cup of Kokoma, a strong, weed-­infused punch. John was exhilarated, and drunk. He was an Axeman.

On July 7, 1977, nine students at the University of Benin, on the edge of the oil-­rich Niger Delta, founded the N.B.M.’s first chapter. They pledged to purge Africa of racism and oppression and to promote research into traditional culture, including juju, a religion based on spiritual contagion through physical contact, whose practitioners imbue objects with divine power. The nine students called their philosophy “Neo-Blackism.” “Our organization was going to be the vanguard in the move to create a new black nation,” wrote one of the N.B.M. co­founders. “We were to see ourselves as leaders of all black men world-­wide.”

On July 10, 1999, at four in the morning, forty masked Axemen burst into a dorm at Obafemi Awo­lowo University, in the city of Ile-­Ife. Using shotguns and hatchets, they massacred five student-union leaders who had protested against cults. Another three died later from their injuries. Investigators never discovered who ordered the slaughter, though some of those arrested allegedly confessed ties to the university’s vice-chancellor, who had blocked attempts to expel cults. The crime shocked and disgusted Nigeria: in less than two decades, the fraternities had come to embody the kind of oppression they once sought to resist.

By the time John bammed, crime was already endemic to the . Back then, he told me, there were around four hundred Axemen in Jos, led by an elected chairman and priest, both current students. Those below them were sorted into three groups: eyes, criers, and butchers. Eyes kept watch for police raids at initiations and other gatherings. Criers publicized events and proselytized principles in flyers or emails. Butchers were enforcers. They punished transgressions of the N.B.M. code of conduct but also fought rival cults, the most powerful of which, in Jos, was called the Vikings. John’s calm demeanor and youthful looks, he told me, inclined leadership to make him an eye.

John quickly became friends with a clique of Axemen from Enugu, a city in southern Nigeria, who taught him the basics of advance-­fee fraud, known in Nigeria as a 419 scam for its place in the nation’s criminal code. Scammers are often called Yahoo Boys for the email service they tend to favor. Many of them are male university undergrads. They score cash from email recipients by posing as a variety of characters including attorneys, soccer talent scouts, or widows in possession of huge estates. (In 2013 the world lost an estimated $12.7 billion to 419 scams.)

what happened? Share let the young ones be discouraged

numberonecytyzen:
Na wa ooo.
I remember back in Uniuyo, in my 100 level, I was very interested in Frat affairs(with no intention of joining). I felt there was limited cult presence in the school. I remember telling a roommate to "capless observe more" Very stupid of me. And go to make things worse, this roommate of mine had many coursemates who used to visit him and he was find if if boasting of how "strong" his coursemates were. Damn!!!
For some reasons, I didn't get to complete my schooling there.

Being funny is a sign of intelligence. It's a sign that you can make connections between things and understand why those connections are important, which could be a definition of intelligence.

Also, guys who are funny tend to be confident, outgoing, and prepared to make things happen instead of having things happen to them. Women like guys who are confident and outgoing, but a lot of the time, at least with men, that adds up to "asshole". If you're funny, you might be an asshole, but you're a funny asshole.

Personally, as someone who has worked in comedy, I can confirm that I have got away with some of the most heinous, despicable crap imaginable with women just because I was funny.

Vigilante to the rescue

In most of the communities this reporter visited, there exists a local but loose security system managed by indigenes. Most times, the groups are formed by locals driven by their love of community. Around the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) and adjoining communities, a youth vigilante group shoulders the security responsibilities.

For example, the Vice-Chairman of Umuchima Youths Association, Imo State, Mr. Boniface Akagha said the group formed the vigilante network in the community to offer free security services to residents. “We are concerned at the level of insecurity in our community. Our parents lack the strength to secure the community. The youths can do that because of their energy. People call us when there are attacks. And we respond immediately,” Boniface said.

While the likes of Boniface defy the horror of the night to secure fellow residents, his counterparts in Ekosodin are driven by financial rewards. A former leader of the Ekosodin Youth Association, who preferred to be addressed as Chairman, said the lure of material things had stoked divisions within the security ranks, culminating in the proliferation of factions. A faction led by Obaze currently staggers at the cruxes of a scuffle. Obaze is allegedly to have dipped hands into the finances of the group, misappropriating about N600,000 from where he is said to have procured a Gulf car. Investigations showed that insecurity has increased in the community since the fight began.

At Ujeme around Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, the vigilante group, it was alleged has been infiltrated by cultists, who sometimes turn around to harass the same residents they are expected to defend.

The story is the same in Ekosodin, where some landlords have had to part with as much as N70,000 annually to maintain steady security cover in the event of an attack. Though, of all the hostels visited randomly by this reporter, only a handful of landlords confessed to complying with the payment regime, citing extortion.

The real terrorists

Our investigations revealed that a larger percentage of attacks on Nigerian universities’ off-campus hostels are the handiwork of part-time students. This category of students, it is believed, have sufficient time at their disposal to socialise and foment trouble.

A former leader of the UNIBEN SUG said most of the culprits behind off-campus violence are students who have been expelled and those who were not admitted after undergoing the UNIBEN Diploma programme. “A good number of them are also students who got extra years in school. That’s why management decided sometimes ago that no student should be allowed to spill twice,” he said. Such category of students, he noted, were to be given a pass just so they could move on with their lives.

Facing the monsters for good

In 2012, Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), Dr. David Yakubu, said the level of insecurity on Nigeria’s campuses was intolerable, calling the governments to action. In 2014, Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Dr. Julius Okogie decried the “alarming violence” in Nigeria’s universities.

Consequently, on the 3rd of October 2014, the Federal Government, through the Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Youths and Students Matters, Comrade Jude Imagwe, ordered military protection for campuses. But almost a year after the declaration, campuses remain vulnerable to attacks. Of serious concern is the fate of students who stay off-campus – who are often left to their own devices.

Senior officers of the various universities who spoke to our correspondent said the institutions cannot be liable to what befalls students staying off-campus. Supporting the opinion of the image maker of the Ambrose Alli University, Mr. Chris Adamaigbo, Public Relations Officer of the University of Benin, Mr. Michael Osasuyi, said the security of off-campus hostels was clearly outside the ambit of the institution, saying “the current administration, led by Prof Osasere Orunmwense, has initiated moves to cushion effects of the situation. We have embarked on a scheme to assemble the database of students staying in BDPA, Osasogie and Ekosodin. And we are working with corporate organisations to build more hostels for the swarming students,” he said.

But until these intentions are matched with action, the spate of insecurity around the hostels will continue to be disturbing.

In a report by World Education News and Reviews (WENR) and corroborated by Dr. Jamila Shu’ara in his paper presented at the UNESCO Institute of Statistics Workshop on education statistics in Anglophone countries, the number of applicants into Nigerian universities grew from 916,371 in 2005/2006 to 1,670,833 in 2013/2014. And 520,000 students were admitted into Nigerian universities in 2013 compared to 76, 984 in 2005, indicating a 31.1 per cent admission rate as against 8.4 percent in 2005. Despite this sharp increase in university enrolment, the number of available hostels remains unchanged; a situation which forces many to seek accommodation in the unsafe off-campus hostels every year.

Welfare Secretary of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Iloh, said new hostels should be erected to absorb the growing student population. “It’s a question of population explosion. And one way we can solve this riddle is by increasing the number of hostels. But unfortunately, many of the private hostels built around the campuses are rather too expensive. School authorities would do well to explore private sector participation,” she said.

In an interview with our correspondent, a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Lagos, Dr. Alex Igundunase, said the prevalence of cultism on Nigerian campuses could be traced to dysfunctional family up-bringing and the need to “belong” to a group to boost one’s ego. He called on relevant security outfits to step up their intelligence in ensuring safer campus. “There is nothing a society benefits from (the activities of) cult groups. Often times, the original personality of the person is distorted, awkward and weird. Soon or later, the person becomes a problem to the society.

“Organisations or institutions of learning could work out modalities of getting people who can infiltrate these groups with the aim of understanding why they do what they do. We can’t solve the problem if we don’t know why they do what they do,” he said.

In a joint study published by Haastrup T. Ekundayo et al in the Kamla-raj Journal of Social Sciences titled: Menace of Cultism in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions: The Way Out, the authors argued that “The existence of these groups on campuses has made life unsafe and meaningless to both staff and students,” and called on “stakeholders in the university education, including the churches, the mosques, parents, school administrators and the society at large, to fuse effort to eradicate the menace before it destroys the whole educational system.” Stakeholders are of the opinion that the spate of insecurity on off-campus hostels can be reduced if the government is more aggressive in her quest to eradicate cultism in the tertiary institutions by enacting and implementing relevant laws.

But like the sun, the likes of Igbinosa (off-campus dwellers) still wake up to their quotidian torment. While their mates retire quietly to their beds in school hostels, they slog home in faint optimism, looking up to the sky for protection

This investigation is supported with funds by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting and Ford Foundation

Two students beheaded in Abia penultimate Saturday

In a similar manner, two students of Abia State University, Chukwuebuka, a 300-level student of Estate Management, and Samuel, also a 300-level student, but of Political Science department were gruesomely beheaded by unknown boys suspected to be cultists. Chukwuebuka and Samuel were said to be members of Mafia cult and the attack was a reprisal one, meant to retaliate the killing of the leader of a rival group, Burkina Faso, by name Collins, a.k.a Biggy, who was killed the week before.

The attack reportedly happened at the CHIDOO Hostel, a private hostel about 4km from the university gate, prompting the university management to advise parents to pay attention to where their wards are staying.

Dogon-Dutse, an off-campus community around UNIJOS, Plateau State, is another den of violent goons, waiting to unleash deep horror on unsuspecting students. “Most of these attacks are carried out by student-robbers. They rape girls, steal and sometimes inflict harm on their victims,” said a post-graduate student who requested not to be named. He narrated how a cultist, who laid ambush on another student, was killed at the institution’s permanent site. The cultists had allegedly killed the wrong student, a victim of mistaken identity, when students at the scene of the incident chased them and apprehended one in the process.

However, when placed on a scale, the horror of Ujemen community around Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma, Edo State, dwarfs that of Dogon-Dutse in astronomical proportion. Of great peculiarity is the fact that attacks here are mostly motivated by desperate cultists, who pounce on innocent residents to solve their survival puzzle. “Most of these cult boys are hungry students, and sometimes locals. They survive by harassing innocent people. They steal and intimidate fellow students, especially those who live off-campus. Politicians also use them during elections. Thereafter, they are left on their own to cause trouble everywhere,” said a source at the Anti-Cult Campaign Organisation of Nigeria (ACCON).

Where is the police?

Like Igbinosa, many of the victims in Ekosodin bear their cross alone. On March 4 this year, a gang of robbers attacked a hostel on Ehico Street around 4a.m. Of the 14 rooms in the lodge, 13 were raided. One of the occupants allegedly placed a distress call to nearby Ekosodin Police Station, but when it appeared help was not forth-coming; they resorted to calling the local vigilante men. But the robbers left just before the vigilante men arrived.

Residents insist that the station at Ekosodin has failed to live up to expectation. “Nobody here can beat their chest that when trouble comes, Ekosodin police would rescue them. Most times, they would have to call the Ugbowo Police Station for help which is farther. The question therefore is, why are they here if they can’t defend us?

“Most times, the robbers would have wreaked havoc on residents before the police show up. It appears deliberate. Of what essence is the security outfit then?” she queried.

Speaking to this reporter at the Ugbowo Police Station at BDPA Quarters, the Divisional Police Officer who gave his name as S. O. Ugbowo, said the division had been responsive to attacks. “We don’t stay back whenever we receive a distress call. Our men have been hard working. Those who say we don’t respond on time are not sincere,” he said.

But when this reporter visited the Ekosodin Police Station in March, nothing suggested it was a security outfit, except for a worn-out Nigeria Police flag that waved feebly. A middle-aged man who spoke to this reporter on condition of anonymity said: “This is not a police station. It is an out-post. We are six personnel here altogether. But only two officers are armed. When emergency arises, it’s only those two officers that can go. “

Asked why there was no single officer in sight at 6:23pm when this reporter visited, he said: “We have closed for the day. I would have gone home by now too. I stayed back on personal grounds.”

Playing with the hyena

Following extensive interviews with former students’ leaders, it was discovered that university authorities are behind the prevalence of cultism on campus, as well as its associated insecurity on off-campus hostels. Checks revealed that when Chineloma – Nigeria’s first female SUG president – won the UNIBEN Students Union presidential polls in 2009, there were unrests at the institution in the evening. The protests were motivated by water scarcity that had hit the campus.

But as the agitations began to mount, a group of men drove into the Hall 2 Car Park area in a Benz car and started beating the protesting students. “Management use these boys to maintain peace sometimes,” the source said.

He continued: “When you assume office as an SUG member, you are to link up with some cult boys who can work with you. You don’t have to join them, but this serves as protection from the oppression of SUG Parliament, who might want to suspend or punish you. If you don’t, be prepared to be exploited or harassed by cult groups because they’ll always come for you. “

A former SUG president at the Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, said: “My Chief Security Officer (a boy who acts as personal assistant to the president) is an ex-lord in Eiye. I have direct relationship with some high-ranking members of other cults around. If you don’t do that, you are either killed or continue to face all manners of harassment from every side.”

In Ekosodin, the miscreants are known as ‘Ekosodin Parliamentarians.’ They are sometimes deployed by troubled students’ leaders to disrupt sittings by members of the SUG Parliament. A former SUG leader recounted how the parliament plotted his “unjustifiable” removal. He told this reporter that he got a cash grant from a politician, whom he had been supporting.

When the information got to other members of the union, they wanted a share of the money, which he subtly declined. His refusal meant SUG parliament would initiate his impeachment proceedings. “I called those ekosodin parliamentarians to disrupt the whole arrangement. We later settled the fight,” he said in comic rebuff.

Harassment, atrocities all over

Alimi was invited to a birthday by a supposed campus fellowship member. But on getting to the venue of the bash, he discovered that it was no different from a gathering of thugs. “The boys were drinking and smoking Indian hemp, and everyone clung to their babes. My two friends and I felt odd. We left the party almost immediately for a friend’s place at Capa Green Hostel. As we entered the street between Aso Rock Villa and Newton Hostel, we heard voices from behind, saying “four wise men, show!” While the other three went back in obedience, Alimi kept moving on as though he didn’t hear anything. But the voice added: “You dey prove stubborn abi? If you move there, I go shoot you.”

Alimi recounting the experience said, “I just stood still, not knowing which to choose between a bullet and going to meet them and parting with my phone. Deep in my fear, I decided not to yield to the threat. So I kept going, but the bullets weren’t fired at me after all. My friends came to join me later to narrate how the “boys” collected their phones and money. They also asked for my department and hostel, said they would come for me.”

Kester, 400-Level Law student of UNIBEN, has seen the rough edges of a community where terror reigns unchecked. His calm, unassuming mien contrasts sharply with the trepidation that greets his soul at the mention of Ekosodin. For the fellow who stays at Africana Hostel, Ekosodin is a nightmare many dwellers love to hate.

“I was sleeping in my room one night, when the ladies living in the room opposite mine arrived at about 1.00am in the morning. They were party riders, who kept a tab on social events, but as I opened the door for them this fateful day, three boys showed up from nowhere. One of them held a gun while the others wielded dangerous weapons. They forced their way into the hostel and told all of us to lie down. Before my very eyes, they pounced on one of the girls, stripped her of her dress, pushed her to the wall and raped her in the darkness.”

For Beye, a Geography and Regional Planning student, a minor disagreement with a flatmate suspected to be cultist, meant he had to present himself for a daily dosage of slap every morning. “You won’t believe it, but I had to present myself before those boys, to be slapped every morning,” he said.

If Ekosodin purrs with dark narratives, BDPA Quarter resonates the same tirades of terror for residents. In broad daylight, Abulime’s quest for a befitting rest turned out to be a date with the devil. “Around 1.45pm, I was sleeping in my room at Presidential Lodge, Third Street, BDPA, Ugbowo. Suddenly, I heard a bang on the entrance door. Initially, I thought it was the wind because it was raining. I returned to bed. Suddenly, the bang came again, this time, with a force. Before I could stand up, my door had already given way to two hefty guys. One carried a cutlass and the other held a battle axe. One of them gave me a blow on the head and as I fell, they immediately ordered me to bring out my money and laptop. I told them I had no laptop. They ransacked the room and made away with my Play Station 2, Blackberry and five thousand naira.”

He added: “They left my room and went to other rooms. But luck ran out on them when they got to the last room. The occupant, who was obviously aware of the attack, waylaid them behind the door. He vehemently smashed one of them with a rod. He fell and the other ran away through the back door, abandoning their spoils. Before we could all join him, the other thief ran away. We reported the case at the BDPA Police Station the next day.”

Gloria recently graduated from the Mass Communication Department of the University of Jos, Plateau State. But the excitement of her graduation few months ago did little to erase the trauma she endured, when student-robbers ripped her door open, and quietly hauled away her valuables. Juxtapose this with the helplessness of Chiamaka, who was trailed to her home by a group of student miscreants.

Hear her: “I just returned from a programme on campus that fateful evening. My room was stuffy since there was power outage, so I opened my door for fresh air. At about 7:00pm, two guys strolled into my room. I felt they were robbers, one of them held a gun. They ordered me to go naked. I refused. And I started praying. They became forceful and started fuddling my breast. They tried hard to force my two laps open, but I kept struggling with them. Later I began to run out of energy, so I screamed. Immediately they perceived my neighbour unbolt a door, they zoomed off.”

For Zeal, a 300-Level Electrical/Electronic Engineering student, Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), there is neither any reason to trust the police nor the local vigilante group. They share a common denominator: non-unresponsiveness to attacks. “I was at home when three boys came to my lodge in broad day light. They took away my laptop, other gadgets and money. I reported at the vigilante office. They assured me they would work with the police for proper investigation since I knew some of the faces. Till date, nobody investigated anything. And I see those folks walk freely every day,” he lamented.

Years of unreported killings

In 2011, Steve (nicknamed TJ) gained admission to study International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of Benin. As a chap who had been deeply involved in internet scam for the most part of his life, his admission seemed like a perfect way to better channel his youthful energy. But two years later, all that changed. He was invited to a birthday ceremony at Aso Rock Villa, a students’ hostel located in Ekosodin. Two unknown gun men stormed the lodge, headed for the venue of the bash and shot him in the head. The following Sunday, members of his campus fellowship, The Love Family, held a service in his honour amid tears. His friend who gave his name simply as Ogieva said Steve’s assailant had been on his trail since the previous year, following his involvement in a brawl with a member of a rival cult group.

Galaxy owns a barbing saloon inside the Ugbowo campus of the University of Benin. Ostensibly buoyed by the need for expansion, he opened a new shop in Ekosodin at the beginning of 2014. But by October of the same year, students woke up to behold the lifeless body of Galaxy, killed by unknown persons suspected to be cultists. Sources said he had had a disagreement with members of the confraternity, the most dominant cult group in Ekosodin.

Further investigations revealed that Galaxy’s murder was sparked by the brutal massacre of a certain George, a top-ranking figure in Eiye. He was said to have been killed in the wee hours of the day in front of his mother at Uselu, Benin-City. Few days after the incident, the development ignited reprisal attacks in neighbouring communities, including the case of Gbenedion, who until his gruesome murder was a 300-Level student of Chemistry at the institution.

In 2012, Ali, a 400-level student of Medicine and a native of Auchi in Etsako West Local Government Area of the state, was killed at the Senior Staff Quarters. I remember this vividly because I was coming from anatomy gate with my babe that year coming to school to read that afternoon The cause of his murder remains unknown till date. This however sparked-off other killings on off-campus hostels, a situation which sources say forced the management to constitute a three-man committee to meet with prominent cult leaders around the campus to broker peace.

Investigations reveal that cultists defy the university’s security apparatus to wreck untold havoc on students. In June 2013, cultists invaded the Ugbowo campus of the University of Benin, killing a 200-Level Mathematics student at the institution’s Sports Complex around 2pm, while the statutory biometric registration was on-going. The Chief Security Officer of the university, Mr. A. U. Otokiti, was said to have fled the scene as soon as the incident happened, a development which, according to a former Students’ Union Government member, angered the school’s management and led to the termination of his appointment.

The sun still rises in Ekosodin, a tiny precinct detached from the Ugbowo campus of the University of Benin by a towering fence. But its brightness pales into insignificance for students who trudge the erosion-ridden community every academic session. Unlike the sun, their pains are grim, dark and shrouded in obscurity.

Consider the case of Daniel; a jovial, smart kid. His sense of humour remained unrivalled. At 23, the stage was set for him to graduate from the department of Chemical Engineering, University of Benin. But everything fizzled away before his very eyes. One evening, “Afrodan” – as Daniel was popularly called by fellow students – went to see his girlfriend who stays at Vincente Villa in Ekosodin. A gentleman, he bought a pack of food at Kadis, an eating outlet in the area, for his lover. They hugged and chatted in tones characteristic of romantic encounters and agreed to see again in school the following day. But just as he stepped out of the hostel gate, two rounds of bullet hit him straight in the head. He managed an unsteady gait till he fell on his face. He passed on immediately. Till date, men of the Ugbowo Police Command are yet to uncover the masterminds of his death.

A surface scan at Jasper (not his real name) gives the 21-year old away as a happy-go-lucky student, unperturbed by life’s daily troubles. But a dig into the trenches of his soul mirrors the fears and frustrations of students living in off-campus hostels across Nigeria. For the fellow who resides at Y2K Villa in Ekosodin, off-campus accommodation comes with more pains than gains. “Life in Ekosodin is a jungle. It is tougher if you are not a “strong man.” My second year was the most terrifying. Look at this place (pointing at an obvious scar at the back of his elbow); I was beaten by “boys” one night as if I were a thief. They could not believe I was not a cult member,” he narrated.

In the beginning

When Igbinosa gained admission into the university in 2004, his 46-years old single mother insisted he stayed on campus. As though nursing a premonition of the danger that lurked ahead, his mother practically forced him to settle for one of the school’s hostels. “She just didn’t explain why she wanted me to stay on campus by all means.” he said. But after spending a year in an environment that seemed to have imprisoned his best impulses, the fascination for a wild and free life got the better of him. “I wanted freedom, school hostel was boring,” he said.

At 200-Level, when it seemed his mother’s supervision had waned, he joined a friend to rent a room self-contained apartment at Newton Villa in Ekosodin. What however started as a quest for freedom later turned out a narrative in self-torture. Igbinosa was returning from a class one fateful evening shortly after a downpour. As he jerked to a song from his MP4 Player, two young men accosted him and demanded to know his “identity.” The story ended badly. Igbinosa was beaten till he bled from the nose and got swollen eyes. His two mobile phones, necklace and wallet, containing proceeds generated by his departmental association, were also ‘seized.’

But it didn’t end there. “Three days later, I ran into one of them at a bar on Edo Street. I had gone to see a football match. He requested I pay for the drinks they had just taken.” Igbinosa, who seemed to be dumbfounded, ran his hands through his pockets only to squeeze out a pantry N170; a sum largely insufficient to offset the N760 bill his assailant had incurred. “He made me promise the owner of the bar that I would return to pay the balance. And the woman held my mobile phone as surety,” he narrated.

Subsequently, they threatened to “drop” Igbinosa, if he didn’t remit a portion of the monthly allowance he got from his Abuja-based parents. In campus parlance, “drop” means to kill somebody, a practice common in campus violence. Igbinosa found the threat seemingly unbearable and called his friend, an Eiye top gun. “When I told him what happened, he promised to talk to the boys. Later we learnt that the boys (his assailants) are members of a rival group (to Eiye). At a time, they said they were not interested in money again, that they would kill me. Some of my friends who were already members advised me to join; that way I would be protected.”

Around 7pm the following Thursday, Igbinosa received a call in school from his flatmate that a troika of fierce-looking boys had besieged their hostel looking for him. “I knew immediately that they were the same people. That day, I couldn’t return home. I went to pass the night in a friend’s place at Osasogie,” he said.

Neddstark:
Lol. I see where your statement was directed. The difference between us is that you're an optimist, while I am a realist. The fact is that like the present Nigerian system cannot curb fraud, the present Nigerian system neither curb cultism. You think ending cultism is by saying no to cultism on Nairaland? It goes a long way. The Nigerian government itself is not ready to stop it. Take a look at how the US government brought down the Black Panther in the 70s and reduce the impact of the Italian mafia. Has your government taken any proactive measures like that. Cult killings that happen in your state, how many are properly investigated. We can only warn our friends, families and those that find themselves in Nairaland. The large society is out there, young men are bamming every month. Anyways instead of countering me, you can make a major step like OP did against cultism. As for me, I'll keep being a realist and warning those who I can. God help us.

This is the sad relaity.

I rembered this vivdly and reported n the news

Neddstark:
So far, we have been blaming cultism on our youths, etc. But lets face it, the reason why cultism thrives in the Nigerian society is as a result of the weak Nigerian system. Yes the Nigerian security system is weak and shitty. If police had given OP justice against the cultists that intimidated him, would he have blended? 20 years ago, over 40 NBM members invaded OAU and brutally killed 5 students. Till now, not one of the culprits have been arrested, despite the fact that over 10 confessed as being part of the killings.
Cultists have field day killing in Ikorodu, Benin, makurdi, etc, after the murders, police simply come and pick up the dead bodies. Little or no investigations are done. The killers getting away from justice so easily will make them more brazen to commit more crime and they might only get nemesis in the hands of their rivals rather than with the laws of the country. Every week, a cult killing goes on in Nigeria. Please how many times have the police actually arrested someone who perpetrated the murder? The system has made it a part of us. More than 80% of cult killings go uninvestigated, not to talk of justice served.
Now the new trend is that the force allows ex-cult and active cult members into its security force. There is a large concentration of active cultists in the police, immigration, customs and military. Lets face it cultism will never end in Nigeria. It has come to stay. If you do not watch your children well, they will end up becoming cultists. Situation is sad. If you have some good amount of funds, consider getting out of this country. While you are here avoid trouble as much as you can. Human life has little value except you are somebody popular or rich.
Just saying...

Blessedaredweak:
u sef don turn government official abi u just said that based on hearsay.......let's all be guided, there's no single government official on this thread, it feels good when people try to act like one but every single threat I have seen on this page is so childish.
someone that really knows what the security system is about will immediately know its bluff, but children will believe.
25tolife it seems u are scared of the threats that's why u keep quoting to clarify, there's nothing wrong with ignoring accusations

Don't be too quick o, jjteam has deactivated because of someone just go through few pages back and you will understand that things are happening.

rodgermetty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKtGtN3xkAs

Olujimi the forex trader, the ladies man on MatchMakers Longest time

GregJo:
Can you point me to the pages where pitfalls of real estate were discussed?

One dude here is the guru.