Ogun cultists spread tentacles of killings, residents panic as politicians cash in on violence
Many residents of Ogun State now live in constant fear as more youths with the encouragement of politicians take to cultism and cause panic in major cities, writes DAUD OLATUNJI
While it trying to permanently end kidnappings, Ogun State is also being confronted with violence caused by cultists.
Recently, violence ensued between two rival cult groups: Eiye and Aiye confraternities. One of the violent incidents occurred not far from the Government House, Isale-Igbein, Abeokuta in the Ogun Central
The killings spread to Sagamu in the Ogun East Senatorial District and later to Sango-Ota in the Ogun West Senatorial District claiming many lives.
No fewer than 60 persons have been gruesomely killed in various clashes between cult groups in different parts of the state between 2019 and 2022.
Areas which have been turned into battlefields for cultists are Abeokuta, Ifo, Sagamu, Ijebu-Ode, Sango-Ota and Ijebu-Igbo.
The immediate past Commissioner of Police in the state, Edward Ajogun in January 2021, confirmed that at least 25 persons were killed in cult clashes in different parts of Ijebu-Ode.
Also so in November 2020, about 20 people were killed in various cult clashes between members of the two groups also in Ijebu-Ode.
The killings, however, subsided for a while before it recently reared its ugly head with the latest killing of 15 people.
Sources told our correspondent that the recent killings had been going on almost on a daily basis before the latest one that happened a few weeks ago, claiming the life of a notorious cult leader in the state capital.
Thursday, March 24 would continue to linger in the memories of the traders and passers-by at Panseke market, who were caught in the web of the killing of a cult leader, Tommy Boy.
The ever bubbling Panseke market became a ghost of itself shortly after some gun-wielding young men invaded the market and went straight for their target.
The traders and passers-by scampered for safety as gunshots rented the air while the assailants were hacking Tommy Boy to death . He was hacked to death by suspected members of the Aiye cult group.
It was further gathered that Tommy Boy was a suspected leader of the Eiye confraternity group, a notorious cult well known to many people in Panseke, Onikolobo, Oluwo, Adigbe and Onikoko communities, mostly populated by students of the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic in Abeokuta.