Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The paper examined the menace of secret cults in the Nigerian tertiary institutions. The origin of cultism was traced to the Seadog confraternity (a.k.a Pyrates), founded by Wole Soyinka and six others at the foremost University of Ibadan in 1952. The peaceful, and non-violent confraternity set up then, in the 1980s, metamorphosed into a secret cult whose activities have been characterized by some bizarre and violent activities. It was against this background that this paper x-rayed the possible causes and consequences of cultism in Nigerian tertiary institutions. The major causes of cultism in tertiary institutions were influence of peer group; parental background; societal decadence; erosion of education standards; militarization of the Nigerian polity; lack of recreational facilities; quest for power and protection among others. However, some of the effects of cultism include loss of lives and properties, disruption of academic activities on campuses, unsafe university environments. It was therefore recommended that all the stakeholders in the university education system should fuse efforts to combat the menace. It was also recommended that government should be more aggressive in her quest to eradicate cultism in the universities.
Ajayi et al. (Thu,) studied this question.