Lagos — Nothing best illustrates the nation's creepy drift to brutality and bestiality than the cold-blooded murder of Barrister Seun Oyedola, a lawyer as well as an English leacturer at the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago Iwoye, Ogun State.

Citizen Oyedola was declared missing by his family and the school authorities on the same day that the University convulsed in an orgy of bloody fight between cult groups.

However, a few days later, the search for the missing don yielded hair-raising result - his body, lifeless and decomposing, was found many kilometres away behind a hospital hostel in Ijebu Igbo.

Tell-tale signs of premeditated murder-machete cuts on the legs and a strap of cellophane tied around his head, and used to cover the mouth and nostrils - gave clue to the theory that the deceased may have been abducted and murdered by his assailants.

At this juncture, it is difficult to ascertain whether Oyedola was killed by the rampaging cultists, but the coincidence of this death and the cultic upheaval in which two cultists were said to have been killed, elicit curiosity.

While not imputing any motive as to the cause of the death of the lecturer, we condemn in very strong words the fatal, blood-cuddling conduct of the cultists at O.O.U. It beats logic and reason why students, most of them teenagers and adolescents, would abandon the noble duty of studying hard and imbibing the virtues of good character and integrity for the ignoble and illicit anti-social engagement in cultism which leads to perdition.

It bears restating the fact that cultism has given Nigerian schools a very bad image. The activities of cultists on our campuses have continued to resonate a fearful and frightening tenor among students, forcing many of them to abandon school and studies out of fear.

This is so because both the school authorities and the governments have treated cultists with kid gloves. Recently, about 40 and 52 students were said to have renounced their membership of cult groups at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (Enugu Campus) and the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, respectively, to the delight of the school authorities. This is scratchy and unacceptable and it merely begs the issue rather than address it.

There is no evidence, empirical or otherwise, that a public renouncement of membership of a cult in real terms translates to actual excision of the person from that cult group or the extinction of the group itself. It is on this note that we frown at schools still harbouring students after they had performed the ritual of renouncing membership of any cult. Such students, in spite of their feigned penitence, should be rusticated or be made to start afresh only after they have shown enough capacity for good conduct.

Institutions that entertain and orchestrate the ritual of students' renouncement of membership of cults do nothing but aid and abet the crime. And it is indeed a crime and should be treated as such.

In fact, the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria forbids any member of a secret society (which include cultists) from holding any public office. Therefore, cultists should not be idolized, tolerated or celebrated, not even in the guise of public renouncement.

Cultism is the catalyst for restiveness and death on our campuses. The death of two cultists in the OOU rival cults clash is a case in point. But beyond the death of these two cultists, the abduction and subsequent murder of Barrister Oyedola is a poser that must be unraveled with both precision and accuracy.

The Ogun State police command must step up its investigation into the murder of Oyedola who was not only a lecturer but also an uncle, brother, breadwinner and friend of many. His death has left a big gash of pain in the hearts of those he left behind including members of his immediate family.

The only way to assuage the pain is for the suspects to be fished out and prosecuted according to the laws of the land Prima facie, Oyedola was a victim of murder and the suspects must be so charged.

If at the end, his assailants happen to be cultists in the school, they should be rusticated with immediate effect and charged accordingly. We urge the police to investigate this strange death most passionately and expeditiously, carefully examining all plausible theories.

For instance, did the deceased at any point report any threat to his life? Was he involved in any departmental or faculty feud with any lecturer or administrative staff of the institution? These are clues that need police scrutiny.

The demise and the manner of the death of Barrister Oyedola is spooky, strange and suspicious. We urge dispatch on the part of the police and unwavering support to the investigating team from the public, particularly the school authorities.