By Our Reporter
Abuja (Precise Post) – Pandemonium broke out at the Ilugun High School, Abeokuta as suspected rival secret cult members from the nearby Baptist High School (BBHS), Saje, clashed over fight in respect of a girlfriend to one of the cult members.
The incident took place on Monday, according to eyewitnesses who watched the free-for-all fight during which attempts were made to destroy school property, even as many students and staff of the College were fatally wounded.
Last Tuesday, concerned residents within the neighborhood of the school located in Ita-Elega area of Abeokuta raised alarm on a popular radio station via a telephone call of the existence of cult members involving both Junior and secondary school students of the College as they frequently endanger the peace of the area.
Trouble started on Monday around 12pm when a band of about 20 students of BBHS suspected to be cultists mobilized themselves and stormed the premises of Ilugun High School to square up with a targeted fellow who was simply identified as Abass.
According to informed sources, the said Abass was believed to have masterminded an attack against another student of BBHS whose ear in the process got severed by a knife in a fight over who wields the rightful claim to an unnamed girl who is also a student.
In the process, a video of the wounded boy with the ear severed from his head was circulated and this prompted a reprisal attack which the BBHS boys took to Ilugun High School.
Eyewitnesses who saw the event live confirmed that while the tension lasted, the Ilugun High School boys also mobilized themselves for action.
A teacher at the College, identified as Mr Adeaga unfortunately, while trying to mediate the crisis, was wounded fatally on the head and hand with an axe and other dangerous tools.
In the ensuing tension, one of the BBHS boys also hit another teacher in the head, with blood oozing out.
The Police were subsequently called in to bring the tensed atmosphere to normalcy.
The Principal of the Senior School at Ilugun and her Junior School counterpart, Mrs Tola Dawodu and Mrs Odutayo respectively were out of the school premises as at press time.
But, the Abeokuta Zonal Educational Officer, ZEO, Mrs A.O. Edun declined to speak on the matter,
She said, however, that the matter has been amicably settled, even as she disclosed that all the students involved have been referred to a non-governmental organization called National Schools Crime Prevention Corps (NSCPC) which helps to rehabilitate, remodel and counsel students involved in vices of cultism and hooliganism.
At the Oke-Ilewo office of the NSCPC, no fewer than 50 students of both colleges were seen undergoing counselling drills from facilitators.
The National Coordinator of the Corps, Commandant Folayinka Ige said this reformative process and counselling would continue for some weeks until changes in their behaviour and character are noticed.
“We are working with the state government to help prevent societal vices in our schools. We use visual metaphor display in our training sessions and this is how we discover students confessing to have been initiated into secret cult group’s. These students ate to keep reporting here daily and live at 2pm until we confirm attitudinal change in them”, Commandant Ige stressed. (Opera news).
