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More articles about: Campus Cults, Nigeria:

Cultists Behead Abducted Student

Daily Champion, Nigeria
May 4, 2005
Vincent Adekoye
www.champion-newspapers.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Wednesday May 4, 2005

Rival cult wars in Edo State tertiary institutions have taken a frightening dimension following the abduction and beheading of Mr. Osawe Igbinoba, a final year student of the College of Education, Ekiadolor by suspected cultists.

Apparently not done with their victim, the cultists burnt his head and deposited it at the school gate last Monday to the consternation of students and staff.

Campus Cults

Nigeria’s so-called “Campus Cults” are criminal gangs usually operating in and around the country’s colleges.

In a swift reaction to the bizarre incident the state police command deployed a combined team of soldiers and policemen to patrol the institution to forestall further bloodshed.

Daily Champion learnt that Osawe was kidnapped Saturday evening during bloody confrontation between the Black Axe and Eye Confraternity and taken to an unknown location where he was believed to have been killed and roasted. The cultists took away his headless body after depositing the head at the gate.

It would be recalled that similar bloody rival cult wars at the main campus of the University of Benin (UNIBEN) had, two weeks ago, left three students dead and a dozen others seriously injured.

The latest clash by suspected cultists at the Edo State owned College of Education, initially started Friday night when a faction of one of the cult group invaded one of the students’ hostels in the school and shoot a member of another cult.

Daily Champion gathered that several other students were also injured during the bloody encounter which lasted till Saturday morning.

A source at the office of the Provost of the College told our reporter that another cult group which member was shot immediately mobilised and invaded the college during which one of the members of the rival cult group, was kidnapped.

“It was therefore a gory sight on Monday morning to see the head of the abducted student already roasted and neatly delivered at the gate of the college. This was the climax of man’s inhumanity to man and I think the school authority will not take it kindly with the said suspected cultists because it is a sad development.

“We plead that the Edo state police command should please come to our aid,” the source who is a staff of the office of the Provost, Professor Raymond Elaho, who pleaded anonymity said.

When Daily Champion sought the comment of the provost on the matter, he was said to have gone to report the matter to the state commissioner for education.

On his part, the spokesman of the command Mr. Friday Ogbo confirmed the incident and promised to apprehend the killers.

Public relations officer of the school, Mr. Dickson Agbonwawete, later gave the name of the dead student as Osawe Igbinoba, a year three English/Social studies student of the college.

He confirmed that the combined team of police and soldiers now patrol the institution.