20-year old Joberi Pyagbara, a Rivers state based cult member, (pictured above) says he killed and buried a rival cult member in a community close to his own after a rival cult group known as Dewua stormed his community and killed his friends who belonged to his own cult group known as Dewell.
Speaking with Punch, Joberi said he joined the cult in 2006 after working as a conductor for some years. He said after dropping his arms as a militant for the federal governments amnesty programme, he decided to pick up arms again after the killing of his friends.
"I was arrested by the police because of cultism. It was during a community fight. Members of a cult group killed some of my friends and we decided to avenge and killed two. When the other cult group (Demua) came, they scattered the community.
Many people ran away while they killed our friends. I belong to Dewell. We don’t kill, but when anybody offends us, we go after him. They (other cult group) started it all by killing our members and we had to fight back. It is true that I killed one person and buried him in my community, Eken in Khana Local Government Area. I dug a small grave and did it (buried him). As a cultist, I felt satisfied when I killed those who killed my friends.
Though we surrendered our weapons when the amnesty programme came, when we noticed that a rival cult group was attacking us and killing some of our friends, we had to look for arms and decided to revenge. I am 20 years old. I am part of the amnesty programme; I have never involved myself in crime after the amnesty, but the killings of my friends took me back to cultism.
Those cult people cut our friends’ head and then we agreed that we must avenge. I joined cultism in 2006. We always hustle to get money to finance the group. I work as a conductor or collect money from commercial drivers at bus-stops. If I am freed, I will be a good person and will not join cultism again. I regret all my actions, especially the killings” he said
