Nigeria's campus cults: Buccaneers, Black Axe and other feared groups By Helen Oyibo BBC Pidgin, Lagos Published 2 June 2020 Share Roland* was a first-year student when he joined the Buccaneers, a secret, illegal student society in Nigeria. A brutal initiation ritual was held late at night in the forest. Older members, singing, dancing and drinking, formed a ring around him and other blindfolded initiates, beating them severely until the early hours of the morning. The ritual was supposedly to purge the initiates of weaknesses and instil bravery in them. "The moment you go in there and come out, you are a different person," Roland told the BBC. These societies, also referred to as confraternities and campus cults, have names like Vikings, Black Axe, Eiye (a word in the local Yoruba language for bird), and the Buccaneers. They have a chain of command similar to militia groups, use code words and have insignia bearing the favourite weapon of the cult, along with its colou
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