INTRODUCTION Cults were thought of primarily as only a problem in the United States. Literatures have shown that they are a problem throughout the world, including Eastern Europe and Africa. Not only have Western cults gone to the East to recruit, but indigenous groups have also sprung up there as well, some of them coming to the West (Langone 1993). Historically, cult refers to a system of worship and more specifically to an innovative religious system, as opposed to a sect, which is a breakaway group from an established religion. This is no longer true: many cultic groups today are not religious or spiritual in nature. During the past few decades, however, cult has taken on a pejorative connotation arising from disasters such as Jonestown and Waco (Hall 1981), killing of university students and hundreds of media reports of individuals and families devastated by involvement in cults (Bodunrin 2002). A survey of primary care physicians in Pennsylvania (Lottick 1993), found that 2.2 percent reported they or a member of their family had been involved in a cult. Hartley (1995) also indicated that at least one percent of the population has had a cult involvement. There has been much confusion about cults and how to identify them. In Nigeria, the falling standard of education has been blamed on cult activities (Oti 2002). Cults are not a new phenomenon: they may be as old as man. Cults may form around an individual, an object, an animal, or a concept. A group is called a cult because of its behaviour. Some cults have behavioural patterns that are abusive and controlling in nature. The core concept in cultism is a follower ship dependent upon someone or something outside itself to assist it in coping with a threatening external environment. The more inadequate and inferior the follower feels himself/herself to be, the more magical and mystical the omnipotence projected onto the leader (Whitsett 1992). Cults centre on the interpretations of the leadership and submissive and unquestioning acceptance of these is essential to be a member of the cult. Cults offer the allure of an ordered world that is easily understood. Clear rules of behaviour are enforced and the leader dispels nagging questions about meaning and purpose. They define members’ lives in service to the cult’s interest (Zimbardo and Anderson 1993). Cults are groups that often exploit members psychologically and/ or financially, typically by making members comply with leadership’s demands through certain types of psychological manipulation, popularly called ‘mind control’ (Bird and Reimer 1982), and through the inculcation of deep-seated anxious dependency on the group and its leaders (Langone 1993). According to this perspective (and that of this author) cults can be distinguished © Kamla-Raj 2009 Stud Tribes Tribals, 7(1): 17-25 (2009) Secret Cult Activities in Institutions of Higher Learning: Lessons from the Nigerian Situations E. O. Egbochuku Department of Educational Psychology and Curriculum Studies, Faculty of Education, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria E-mail: egbochuk@uniben.edu; mamandidi@yahoo.co.uk KEYWORDS Cult. Counselling. Undergraduates. Recruitment. Initiation Ceremonies ABSTRACT The economic and racial backgrounds of cult members have changed: most situations involved middle- class to wealthy young people. Cult recruiters often targeted to obtain their affluent parents’ money. However, we now witness a gradual transition to the recruitment of the less affluent and less educated. Recruitment of members of minority groups has increased. Members now come from every ethnic and religious background and include adults, middle-aged, elderly, and children. Entire families join or develop within a group, and children are born into and raised within them. The problems of cultism in Nigerian tertiary institutions are legion. It is difficult to focus attention on all the facets of the plague. Thus, the focus of this article is five-fold; namely to: Highlight the emergence of cults in Nigerian tertiary institutions; Discuss how members are recruited into the cults; Describe the initiation ceremonies; Assess the problems created by the cults; and Examine their counselling implications, ways and means of preventing students from joining the cults.