Eight suspected cultists,all below the ages of eighteen were yesterday arrested in Nyongun Village of Wadata area in Makurdi Local government of the state by men of the Benue State police command.
They are Terseer Iorbee, Emmanuel Ogaba, Donald Iornum and Daniel Samuel. Others are Sunday Mathew, Emmanuel Ityavyar, Shedrack Joseph and Evelyn Tyosaa.
The suspects, most of whom are primary school drop-out, were arrested at about 9.00pm when they had assembled in an exclusive spot to perform initiation ceremony for new members.
The teenagers, who told Journalists they were members of the ‘Koboko’ cult group said, they were being led by one Smobi Aganchawa, who they said, was a bus conductor but now at large.
They added that they were initiated by the said Aganchawa to support the red cult. According to them, the Koboko cult was on mission to carry out a reprisal attack on another rival cult group in another part of the town.
Miss Evelyn Tyosaa, who just finished from Nomadic Primary School, Makurdi told LEADERSHIP SUNDAY that she never had any intention of joining the cult group.
She said? it was the leader of Koboko, who she said had been calling her Queen Mother,? that sent her to buy cold sachet water in a road-side shop near her house when the boys blocked her and took her to the initiation ground.
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Alaribe Ejike, who paraded the suspects, said they have confessed to being members of the Koboko cult and that they have also revealed their mode of operation.
Ejike, however, advised parents to always monitor their children and wards, and assured that the command was all out to ensure that criminal activities were eradicated.
He added that anyone found engaging in any suspicious act would be arrested and punish accordingly.
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