Daily Times

IKORODU: People cover their noses at the stench of death in the Crystal Church of God in Owode Onirin, just outside Lagos, where bloody clothes, drums, bibles and hymn books still litter the bare floor.

Three days earlier, four worshippers were killed as they prayed, in the latest murders blamed on a shadowy gang dubbed the Badoo, believed to have killed 30 people since June last year.

So-called “cult killings” — gang violence often fuelled by drugs and belief in black magic — are not a new phenomenon in Nigeria, which is nearly evenly split between a Muslim north and Christian south.

Crime often spikes during times of economic hardship.

But the murders by the Badoo are making headlines because of their increasing frequency and the manner in which victims are dispatched.

Published in Daily Times, July 13^th , 2017.