The Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado Ekiti, yesterday directed students involved in cultism and secret society groups to relinquish their membership.
The authorities also threatened to expose members of such groups while skills acquisition courses had been designed to train the students for self-employment after graduation.
The Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Samuel Iye-Bandele, who addressed a news conference in Ado Ekiti, said students engaged in nefarious activities should either repent or quit the institution.
He said the university was fed up with the terror usually unleashed on law-abiding students, especially attacks launched on the university community towards the end of last year, using the occasion to condemn the murder of two students in 2017.
According to him, the management had launched a manhunt for the perpetrators and their external collaborators, stressing that suspects who failed to repent would be dismissed.
He announced that future admission of students would be strict as screening would go beyond perusal of paper qualifications.
“Our determination is to leave this university better than we met it by turning out students who will be worthy in learning and character and anyone or group of miscreants trying to constitute clogs on the wheel of our plans will not be spared.
“If parents could toil day and night to ensure their children or wards excelled in their studies and become responsible citizens in future, I wonder why such children should get to school and choose to look the other side.
” It is not our intention to punish those who reconsider their ways and voluntarily renounce membership of such groups, because the Bible says God does not want the death of a sinner but for him to repent and change his old ways, ” he said.
The vice chancellor expressed gratitude to Gov. Ayo Fayose for assenting to a law that prescribed life sentence and death penalty for cultists in the state, especially in institutions. (NAN).
