I Refused to Join Secret Cult in School. My Best Friends Became My Enemies.

Back in 2019, I was in 300 level at a federal university in Owerri. I was 21, quiet, just trying to graduate and make my mother proud. My closest circle was three guys from my department , we called ourselves the four musketeers. We shared notes, ate together, even wore matching ankara for our department's week.

One night during second semester exams, they called me to a spot behind the faculty building. It was around 10pm, harmattan season, cold and dusty. I thought we were going to strategise for the next day's test. Instead, they told me they had joined a certain confraternity and wanted me to come for the initiation that weekend.

I asked them why. They said it was for protection, for connections, for the kind of money that would make our parents proud. I told them I couldn't. My mother raised me in the church, and I had seen what these things do to families , boys who come back different, families that lose sons to violence or madness. I said no.

That was the last normal conversation we ever had.

The next morning, my locker was broken into. My textbooks were missing. Then my mattress was stolen from the hostel. Then I started getting threats , notes slipped under my door, a phone call at 2am saying I would regret my decision. I reported to the security, but naija security, you know how that goes. Nothing happened.

I spent the rest of that semester eating alone, walking with my back to the wall, sleeping at a friend's off-campus room because my own room felt unsafe. I lost 8kg from stress. I almost failed two courses because I couldn't concentrate.

Where are those boys now? Two of them dropped out after a cult clash that killed a student in 2021. One graduated but I heard he has a criminal record. The last one , I saw him two years ago at a bus stop in Alaba. He was selling second-hand phones. He didn't recognise me, or pretended not to.

I graduated with a second class upper. I have a job now, nothing fancy, but I sleep well at night. No one is coming for me. No one is threatening my family. I am still here, still alive, still me.

Omo, the cost of saying no is high. But the cost of saying yes? You may never come back from it. If you are on a Nigerian campus today and they come for you, remember: your life is not for sale. Not for protection, not for money, not for anything. Say no. Run if you have to. But do not let them take your soul.