Two years ago, Femi Adeagbo felt excited when was selected to take part in a 2-day summit in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He applied for a visa to enable him to travel for the conference but his visa was denied.
Even after he had purchased a return flight ticket for about ₦300,000, booked a hotel and carried out COVID-19 PCR test, he could not leave Nigeria.
This was as a result of visa restrictions imposed on Nigerian travelers by Dubai authorities over the cases of cultism in the country.
Many people have been wrongly profiled and denied visas to travel out of the country as result of cases of Nigerians exporting cultism abroad.
Cultism in Nigeria
Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka, one of the young idealistic men who started the National Association of Seadogs also known as the Pyrates, claimed they were having fun with social orientation as they worked towards bridging the gap between the rich and poor Nigerians.
But in the years that followed, the group took a more sinister turn away from the exuberance of left-wing independence politics, toward criminal activities.
In an attempt to head off the slide into criminality and violence, the leadership of Pyrates took the organisation away from campuses and in 1984 expelled violent members.
The expelled individuals formed their own associations, dedicated to organised crime. The new cult groups, the Supreme Eiye Confraternity, a gang also known as ‘the National Association Of Airlords’ and its rival Aiye Confraternity, the organisation otherwise known as ‘Black Axe’, are the two most notorious secret societies with a chain of command similar to militia groups.
They use code words and insignia bearing the favourite weapons of the cults, along with their colours. Their adopted symbols are birds for the Eiye, the Aiye use axes.
For many young Nigerians, they join the groups to gain power and popularity. Members are also promised protection from rival gangs. Their initiation rituals are held late at night in the forests. Old members form a ring around blindfolded initiates and beat them severely.
With no respect for constituted security operatives, they strike in broad daylight in Nigerian tertiary institutions, using dangerous weapons on their rivals. They also terrorise fellow students and lecturers who are against their lawlessness.
As all of these make universities terrifying and insecure places, where ritual murders, s3xual violence and drug abuse happen. Many student cultists have been arrested and prosecuted, but the organisations persist.
On the streets
Today, the influence of cultism has expanded out of universities and into secondary and even primary schools. It has also become rooted among transport workers and artisans.
In the Southwest, public secondary school students – usually teenagers – are dividing themselves into violent groups to harass others. Their language is that of violence and makes their activities have negative effects on their colleagues.
Findings show that these students are usually armed with machetes, axes and other dangerous tools to disrupt the social order and unleash terror on members of the public.
In 2017, secondary school students between the ages of 17 and 18 were arrested for cultism in Lagos. Four years ago it was reported 12 children in a primary school were caught being initiated into a confraternity, with which their parents aren’t aware.
One of the Eiye cult members who spoke with HumAngle under anonymity in Abeokuta, said he was initiated as far back as 2013 when he was a JSS 3 student, by a street “uncle”.
He said that he was used by the leaders of the group to lure many elementary students into being part of them. Following his expulsion from the school, he became more involved in deadly activities as he currently works as a tax collector for Ogun transport workers association.
The inability of cultists who drop out of secondary schools to proceed to tertiary institutions increases the spread of membership among trades such as commercial motorcyclists, plumbers, bricklayers, carpenters and many more.
This reporter’s interactions with some young members show that the most popular ones among the fraternities existing among the artisans are the Aiye and Eiye.
As a top member of Aiye Confraternity in Osun explained, the cult group was initiated after their fallout with Pyrates to “uphold the core nature of African culture”. He said this was based on ideas of “a commitment to excellence”, but due to a “lack of orientation” by many members, it has “become an organised crime group”.
And in the battle for rivalry between Aiye and Eiye, travelling out of the country won’t save you from being attacked.
Exporting cultism abroad
There have been many cases of Nigerians exporting cultism abroad. In some cases, there have been street clashes between two rival groups, in foreign cities. Visa restrictions on Nigerian travellers are being tightened as a consequence.
In Sept. 2020, the President of the Nigeria Union South Africa, Adetola Olubajo, condemned killings by Nigerians who are cult rivals in the country.
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“There are clashes and killings by different cults. At every point in time, even last week, we had this issue of some members of the community getting shot. One of them is dead; we’re arranging his funeral now in Johannesburg. I was invited by his friends and family to help in arranging that,” he had said.
On June 15, 2021, some Nigerian cultists were captured in a video attacking their rivals in UAE. A footage that circulated online showed a group armed with machetes arriving at an apartment complex in Sharjah where they forcefully gained entry and attacked its occupants. The aftermath of the attack was mutilated bodies lying on the floor of a narrow bloodied hallway.
It happened on the day Eiye confraternity was celebrating its 58th anniversary. Every June 15, according to insiders, is set aside for revenge on their rivals. The UAE authorities would later impose visa restrictions on Nigerian travellers after the Dubai police claimed that the suspects were of African origin.
In 2020, two Nigerian cult groups, the Aiye and another group known as the Mafians, reportedly clashed at a nightclub in Avcilar, Istanbul in Turkey. The incident left many people injured.
In Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, two years before, Nigerian cultists attacked each other, injuring some horrendously and destroying property..
Nigerians living abroad are afraid for their children. Growing up in countries far away can leave them at greater risk of coming under the influence of cult groups they might be able to avoid at home, as they have a greater presence in the smaller communities of Nigerians abroad, where they look to recruit useful members to take up positions in their transnational crime syndicates.
Commenting on his experience in Canada, a Nigerian who spoke under the protection of anonymity out of fear said: “One of Canada’s cities, Toronto houses members of the Black Axe cult group popularly known as Aiye.”
He explained that the activities of the cult group in his environment has forced him to ask his only son to relocate to his nephew’s place in the suburb of Scarborough.
“I’m scared of allowing him to live around because he told me that he has been invited to join the group on two different occasions.”
Also, cult gangs of Nigerian origin in India are operating ruthlessly, leading to bloodshed.
On the night of March 9, 2018, a Nigerian student, identified as Hillary, was killed by a rival cult group during a student union election at Chattarpur, New Delhi.
Also, on Oct. 30, 2013, a Nigerian drug lord and suspected cultist was hacked to death by rival local groups in a supremacy battle in Parra, a small village five kilometres away from the Anjuna Beach in Goa, India.
In Italy, Nigerian cult groups are carrying out their illicit activities mostly in Naples and Rome as they spread their involvement in drug dealing and trafficking in human beings for s3x exploitation and have, in some cases, led to bloodshed.
Asked why the cult groups travel to cause violence outside Nigeria, Sheriff Alamu, a top member of Eiye responded saying “forgiveness is a sin. Revenge is a must and sinners must be brought to justice regardless of where they travelled to.”
Different laws prohibit the operation of secret cults and similar activities in Nigeria, but violent attacks among such groups remain rampant. Fights between Eiye and Aiye can make states ungovernable. It usually leads to the death of innocent people
As the activities of cultists persist in and outside the country, many other Nigerian migrants face illegal profiling.
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