A 31-year-old suspected cultist, Ikechinachi Chinyere, has said he paid the sum of N35,000 to join a cult group in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, because of the harassment and intimidation he was facing from cultists in the area he lived.

Chinyere made the revelation yesterday while speaking to newsmen at the headquarters of the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Rivers State Police Command, where he was paraded along with 91 other suspected cultists and five suspected armed robbers.

He said, “I have been facing intimidation at where I live, so in December 2014, I met one of them to teach me their orientation so the boy said I will pay him money before he will teach me their orientation so that they will not be intimidating me again.

“So I gave him N35,000. Last week Tuesday (March 17, 2015), I was in my house at Rumuobiakani when the police came and arrested me. I am not a thief; I don’t fight; I don’t take alcohol. The problem is that if I go to them (cultists), they will excuse me because I don’t know all their orientation.”

Also speaking, another suspected cultist, and a 300-level Accountancy student of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), Port Harcourt, Chika Rex Evans, admitted being a member of the Vikings Fraternity.

Evans said, “I was arrested at my school matriculation party. I was with my friends during my school matriculation party and when we heard police siren; we started running so the police chased us and arrested us.”

Also paraded was the leader of the five-man armed robbery gang, Daniel Samuel, who admitted being an armed robber, explaining that in the operation in which he was arrested, they were sent by a brother to the victim.

Samuel said, “I dropped out of Government Comprehensive Secondary School, Borokiri, in Port Harcourt. I cannot say I am using it to help my family. I have something I am doing so when this man called us and provided the items for us, we went for the operation.

“Somebody (name withheld) told us to come and meet him at Uyo; when we got there he said his elder brother refused to give him money and that his elder brother was bringing money to his house and that we should collect the money and give him his own share. It was on our way back that police arrested us at Akpajo junction.”

Briefing newsmen earlier, police spokesman in the state, Ahmad Muhammad, said the armed robbery suspects were arrested at Akpajo Junction, along the East-West Road, in Rivers State, while on their way back from Uyo after robbing one Akpan Usen Bassey of about N1.6million.

Muhammad stated that other items recovered from the gang included a Sienna bus with registration number RH399CH, one locally made revolver, one live cartridge, 17 assorted cell phones, and an international passport belonging to the victim.