Cult-related violence is posing serious security challenges to schools, communities and businesses, leading to the death of many people, including a senior police officer working in the Niger Delta region.
Investigations show that the violence is mostly confined to states in southern Nigeria, and is engulfing entire communities, and in some cases forcing the police and other security agencies to withdraw. This is in spite of the relentless efforts of the police to stem the menace, with dozens of arrests made in recent times.
And according to the narrative of the police and residents of communities where cultism-related violence is prevalent, the willingness of cultists to venture into crime is linked to the use of hard drugs.
The most frightening aspect is the way cultism has found its way into secondary schools in some states, with authorities unable to do nothing.
In Akwa Ibom, incidences of cultism fuelled by youths indulging in hard drugs have been on the rise over the years which, according to the state command’s police public relations officer (PPRO), SP Odiko MacDon, was the major reason behind the establishment of the Anti-Cult Unit (ACU) to combat the scourge.
The violence, it was gathered, has led to the death of dozens of people in the state over the last one year.