/ 12 July 1999

ARRESTS IN LAGOS AFTER CULT KILLINGS

NIGERIAN authorities have made two arrests amid government concern at student cult killings after seven died at a university in southern Nigeria over the weekend, officials said on Monday. Police Commissioner Johnson Nwoye said two suspected cult members, Adeolu Fagbere and Melody Okuwata, were arrested following the killings at the Obafemi Awolowo University. Five students died in the early hours of Saturday morning when cult members burst into their rooms and shot and clubbed them to death. Two more died later from their wounds. The killings were the latest in a series of murders on university campuses in Nigeria linked to the secretive cults which have grown up in recent years.