Ondo State High School Students Arrested For Cult Activities

The Ondo State Command of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has confirmed the arrest of four secondary school students for alleged cult activities.


Spokesman Wole Ogodo told SaharaReporters that a patrol team of the Anti-robbery Squad of the Command arrested the students on Akure-Owo road, near the Emure-Ile junction, shortly after their initiation rites.

He gave the names of the students as Lawal Lateef (18), Felix Victor (17), Nsoani Stephen (18), and Festus Francis (18), adding that dangerous weapons and charms for initiations were recovered from them.

It was revealed that the teenage students took a membership oath, including licking each other’s blood and drinking different concoctions, before they recited and learned membership greeting codes.

SaharaReporters gathered exclusively that the arrested students attend St. Francis High School on Oke Aro road in Akure, the state capital.

A former student of the school described the institution to our correspondent as “a public secondary school known for its hooliganism."

According to Mr. Ogodo, a fetish axe on a rope and a reddish piece of cloth were recovered from the students along with a small calabash in which the concoction might have been made.

“The students were apprehended as they were returning to Akure from Owo and [they] confessed,” the spokesman said.  “They had been in the bush for initiation between 1am and 4am."

The case will be handled by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Command before it goes to trial.