Nigeria: The Black Axe Confraternity, also known as the Neo-Black Movement of Africa; their treatment of anti-cultists; their forced recruitment of individuals opposed to cults; their initiation rituals and oaths of secrecy; their use of symbols or particular signs
Recent Nigerian newspapers, reporting on a series of killings and shootings allegedly carried out by the Black Axe, explain the notoriety of the confraternity (Daily Champion 3 Sept. 2004; ibid. 27 Jan. 2005; This Day 12 July 2004; Vanguard 27 Jan. 2005; ibid. 23 Sept. 2004; ibid. 17 Aug. 2005; PM News 13 Sept. 2004; ibid. 6 Sept. 2004).
Beginning with the killing of a student at Obafemi Awolow University in Ile-Ife that prompted former president Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 to give the vice-chancellor six months to wipe out cult groups (This Day 12 July 2004; Daily Champion 3 Sept. 2004), the Black Axe has been linked with bloody inter-confraternity fighting for several years (ibid.; ibid. 27 Jan. 2005; This Day 12 July 2004; Vanguard 27 Jan. 2005; ibid. 23 Sept. 2004; ibid. 17 Aug. 2005; PM News 13 Sept. 2004; ibid. 6 Sept. 2004). Media reports include a confrontation believed to have taken place between the Eiye and the Black Axe confraternities at the Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo State in September 2004, during which four students died (PM News 13 Sept. 2004; ibid. 6 Sept. 2004); clashes between the Black Axe, the Vikings, and Black Beret at Enugu State University of Science and Technology, also in August 2004, resulting in the deaths of at least 18 people (Vanguard 17 Aug. 2004); and fighting between the Vikings and the Black Axe leading to the deaths of two or three people at Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma, Edo State, in January 2005 (Vanguard 27 Jan. 2005; Daily Champion 27 Jan. 2005).
Beginning with the killing of a student at Obafemi Awolow University in Ile-Ife that prompted former president Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 to give the vice-chancellor six months to wipe out cult groups (This Day 12 July 2004; Daily Champion 3 Sept. 2004), the Black Axe has been linked with bloody inter-confraternity fighting for several years (ibid.; ibid. 27 Jan. 2005; This Day 12 July 2004; Vanguard 27 Jan. 2005; ibid. 23 Sept. 2004; ibid. 17 Aug. 2005; PM News 13 Sept. 2004; ibid. 6 Sept. 2004). Media reports include a confrontation believed to have taken place between the Eiye and the Black Axe confraternities at the Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo State in September 2004, during which four students died (PM News 13 Sept. 2004; ibid. 6 Sept. 2004); clashes between the Black Axe, the Vikings, and Black Beret at Enugu State University of Science and Technology, also in August 2004, resulting in the deaths of at least 18 people (Vanguard 17 Aug. 2004); and fighting between the Vikings and the Black Axe leading to the deaths of two or three people at Ambrose Alli University in Ekpoma, Edo State, in January 2005 (Vanguard 27 Jan. 2005; Daily Champion 27 Jan. 2005).
Daily Champion reporter Chuma Ifedi observes that not much is known about campus cults since they operate in secret (Daily Champion 3 Sept. 2004). But Daniel Offiong, a professor of sociology at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, recently shed some light on the subject of cults, their origins, and operations in Secret Cults in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions. Published in 2003, the study was originally commissioned by the University of Calabar, in Nigeria, in 1992 following the rise of campus fraternities that had threatened and terrorized fellow students, faculty, and staff in the 1980s and early 1990s (Offiong 2003, vii).
Offiong supplemented his early research with enough additional data gathered through informal interviews and newspaper articles in the summers of 1999, 2000, and 2001 to produce his book, which offers a description of the Black Axe and its modus operandi (ibid., viii).
