Abstract:
The study investigated the management of Campus Cultism among students in Tertiary Institutions in Imo State Nigeria. The population for this study comprised all 2,558 (three hundred level students and all 54 Heads of department of tertiary institutions in Imo State. The sample was 314 respondents consisting of 260 students and all the 54 heads of Departments. The students were drawn through proportionate sampling technique. Descriptive survey design was adopted in the study. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire titled: Management of Campus Cult among Students in Tertiary Institutions Imo State (MCCTI) questionnaire. Six research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while t-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study found that among the characteristics of campus cult groups in Imo State were that members give reference to deity, kill themselves and others while clashing with other members. Their activities are shrouded in secrecy. Among the factors that lead to students cultism are quest for power to do as one likes, societal culture of violence, influence of old members, adolescents’ developmental problems and inadequate use of counseling services. The result also showed that among the management strategies of curbing cultism are making teaching academic programmes more rigorous to fully occupy students’ time good discipline of children in their homes, censoring of press and literature publications on campus cults. The result of the hypotheses showed that there was no significant difference in the mean ratings of HODs and students on the management strategies that would effectively control campus cult activities in public tertiary institutions in Imo State, Nigeria. Based on the findings recommendations for implementation were made, among them were: public awareness campaign should be carried out by the school administrators on the dangers of cultism. The Ministry of Education in conjunction with security agencies could organize workshops/seminars for students and lecturers on the consequences of joining cultism.
