Cults of violence

摘要

A young man whispers a confession: as a university student, he killed six or seven of his peers. He cannot be sure of the number, since his shots were fired in gun battles. He intimidated professors, burned their cars, and helped kidnap-briefly-their children to force them to give good marks to certain students. He did it all as a member of a campus cult. When he renounced his membership, he got death threats and moved to another city, where he lives today.rnNigeria's university system used to be the finest in west Africa, but today's classes are overcrowded, buildings are crumbling and the curriculum has remained unchanged for years. The cults emerged from the shambles. Having started life as confraternities for the most academic students, they have deteriorated into gang violence. The Exam Ethics Project, a lobby group, says that inter-cult violence killed 115 students and teachers between 1993 and 2003. The real number may be much higher.