Chris met his end while having drinks at a pub in the Okokomaiko area of Lagos. Out of nowhere, young guys like himself approached the pub with pistols and pump-action rifles. He was their target; unfortunately, he didn’t see them in time, and neither did they allow him to see anything else other than their rifles releasing bullets into his skinny body. His corpse was later taken away by members of his community to his parent’s house, turning the peaceful atmosphere at the house into a state of wailing.

The story of Chris’ demise was told by a close friend, Tade, who would have also ended up like him if not for what he claimed to be divine intervention.

According to Tade, Chris was a member of the Black Axe, a secret cult found in almost all campuses of tertiary institutions in Nigeria. He was a member despite not being a student of any higher institution.

“He was killed at the pub, which was a few blocks away from his house, by members of Eiye Confraternity, a rival cult group that controlled the area,” Tade said.

“When I got the report of his death and got to know the location, I immediately recalled what he told me eight years before the incident. Chris told me that whenever he visited the pub to have some drinks, his spirit always felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know what he meant then until he was eventually killed at the pub,” he said.

Tade said while he was seeking admission into a university, he almost became a member of Eiye Confraternity because most of his friends in the neighbourhood belonged to the group.

He said, “I went through the first initiation process, and it scared me to my bones. I was taken to an uncompleted building to meet with a few members of the group in the area who beat me up and made me recite some words. After that, their leader took me to one of the rooms of the uncompleted building, where he made me kneel. He then poured Alligator Pepper into his mouth and chewed it. A few seconds later, he poured local gin into his mouth to create a mixture with the Alligator Pepper.”

Tade said the leader spat the mixture into his eyes, which made him suffer excruciating pain that he thought would make him go blind.

“I struggled to open my eyes, but the pain was too much. The leader then barked at me and told me to open my eyes and look him in the eyes. What I saw shocked me. His face looked scary and vampire-like. The pupils of his eyes were vertical slits like those of birds. I shivered while looking at him,” Tade said.

He said the experience, which he came to realize was demonic, made him conclude not to proceed with the rest of the initiation. He accepted Jesus Christ afterward and renounced whatever membership he had with the group.

While Tade pulled away before he could fully become a secret cult member, it wasn’t so for Kingsley, a resident of the Ikorodu area in Lagos, who didn’t have any dream of furthering his education at a higher institution.

“I always admired members of the Black Axe in my area. I loved listening to tales of how they stood up for each other, and I noticed that they were feared by other guys in the neighbourhood. Before I joined, I was told that the group is a respectable one and that members don’t engage in stealing, raping, or any activity that brings disrepute. Shortly after I joined, I realized that those were the exact things they were into,” he laughed while narrating.

Nothing to Gain, A Lot to Lose

Kingsley stated that after he joined, his group usually met once in a while to sing songs of initiates, recite code words, and narrate tales of fellow members who were killed. They also strategized on how to steal neighbourhoods from rival cult groups.

He said, “Things were cool in the beginning, and I knew no one could mess with me in my hood. I walked boldly because I had brothers who could die to defend me. But the moment one of them was killed in cold blood and the rest of us had to flee the neighbourhood for a while, I started to analyze my decision to join the group. It dawned on me that I was in a stupid group when I asked a fellow member if there was any form of reward, perhaps a monthly payment for being a member. He responded that I would be feared by rival cultists and also those he described as Jew Men, a.k.a. non-initiates. The reward was not worth losing my life, and so I renounced.”

For Musa, a carpenter who fled Sango in Ibadan after he renounced cult activities, looking over his shoulders in fear was his reward for joining the Black Axe.

“I joined when there was a heavy war between the Black Axe and Eiye. I was a 21-year-old apprentice at the time and felt I needed brotherhood. Now that I’m a devout Christian, I’ve come to realize that secret cult activities are demonic. Or how do you explain the killings going on?” he asked.

Musa said before he was initiated, the person who lured him in told him that he could only be killed if he had blood on his hands.

“What you are never told is that taking their oath is the same as inheriting all the blood that the group had shed since inception. This is why you become a target regardless of whether you are just a few seconds into the game,” he said.

How It Started, How It Is Going

The earliest form of campus confraternity could be traced to the National Association of Seadogs, otherwise known as Pyrate, which started in 1952. It was formed by some students of the University of Ibadan to fight against elitism. However, breakaway factions arose, and other groups sprang forth with murderous ideologies, all in a bid for power and control in society.

Today, there are more than 10 confraternities, among which are the Pyrates, Black Axe, Eiye, Buccaneers, Maphite, and Vikings. While they were predominantly campus groups, their activities now have a solid footing in different communities across the country.

A report by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) revealed that cult-related violence accounted for 442 fatalities and 290 victims of kidnapping in 2017.

In Edo State, the immediate past Governor, Godwin Obaseki, while declaring war against cultism, stated that about 150 persons lost their lives to cult-related activities between January and June 2024.

Amid the daily bloodshed, states have begun implementing measures to curb cult-related activities. In Edo State, an anti-cultism law was repealed to reveal the *Secret Cult and Similar Activities (Prohibition) Law, 2025*, which imposes a 21-year jail term for cult members and their sponsors.

In Lagos State, a similar law exists, which punishes cultists with a 21-year jail term and a 15-year jail term for those harbouring them.

Despite these laws, cult-related activities persist. Youths now gloriously flaunt their membership on TikTok and other social media platforms.

In a chat with our correspondent, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), through the Director of National Issues and Social Welfare, Abimbola Ayuba, tasked clerics to do more from the pulpit to discourage youths from embracing the menace.

Ayuba said, “These issues start from the family unit. You know that even the church itself is a conglomeration of family units.

“CAN continues to encourage church faith leaders to use the pulpit as a tool to reach out to people, families, and parents. Where possible, counseling sessions should be done to ensure that those involved in cultism are removed from such practices.

“If you want to eliminate a tree, you go down to its root, and the family system is the root of all activities that form society.” (The Guardian)