From Black Skull to Black Axe: 5 Prison Terms, 34 Friends Dead | One Survivor’s Story

[00:00:00]Imagine being just 14 or 15 years old.

[00:00:04]You think your senior students are simply looking out for you. They buy you soft drinks, give you cigarettes, make you feel important, and invite you to what they call a party.

[00:00:15]But before sunrise, your life has changed forever.

[00:00:20]You have been beaten, tortured, sworn into a violent secret society, and there is no turning back.

[00:00:27]This is the story of Leva Emot, a boy whose journey into cotism did not begin at a university.

[00:00:34]It began inside a federal government secondary school. The year was 2002.

[00:00:40]Levi was a junior secondary school three student at federal government college Vanikia in Benway State. Like many students his age, he had little understanding of the dangers hidden behind friendship and acceptance.

[00:00:55]He had no idea that some of the senior students taking special interest in him had a completely different plan. It was during a period the students called mock extension.

[00:01:06]Junior Secondary 3 and senior secondary three students usually stayed back in school to prepare for their examinations.

[00:01:13]It was the perfect opportunity for the senior court members to recruit new boys without attracting much attention.

[00:01:20]For weeks, Levi was carefully groomed.

[00:01:24]His seniors treated him like a younger brother. They bought him drinks, gave him cigarettes, and made him feel accepted.

[00:01:32]To a teenager searching for belonging, it all seemed harmless.

[00:01:37]Then one evening, they invited him to a party.

[00:01:42]Levi believed he was going to have fun with friends.

[00:01:45]Instead, he and 14 other students were quietly taken from the party venue into a nearby bush.

[00:01:52]What happened next would remain with him for the rest of his life. The boys were ordered to strip down to their underwear.

[00:02:00]The initiation began around 9:30 that night and did not end until about 4:00 the following morning. For more than 6 hours, they were subjected to brutal physical torture.

[00:02:12]The violence was so severe that one of the boys permanently lost his hearing.

[00:02:17]Another suffered a broken leg because of the merciless beating they received.

[00:02:22]By the time the son came up, Levi was no longer just a secondary school student.

[00:02:28]He had become a member of the black skull court group.

[00:02:32]Life after the initiation changed completely.

[00:02:36]The new members were regularly summoned for secret meetings inside the school.

[00:02:41]Sometimes they gathered inside the hostel. Other times they met in the orchard away from curious eyes.

[00:02:49]There they were told the group's secret codes, hand signs, language and rules.

[00:02:55]They were also introduced to the culture of absolute loyalty and silence.

[00:03:00]Even more disturbing was who supervised these meetings.

[00:03:04]According to Levi, senior court members from different universities regularly visited the school.

[00:03:10]They did not just stop by for meetings.

[00:03:14]Some of them even slept inside the students host while mentoring the younger recruits and strengthening the court's influence within the school.

[00:03:22]What had started as a simple invitation to a party had become a carefully organized criminal network stretching from secondary schools to Nigerian universities.

[00:03:32]As Levi moved into senior secondary school too, his loyalty to the group would soon be tested.

[00:03:38]He became involved in a confrontation with a member of [ __ ] the junior affiliate of the Supreme Vikings confraternity.

[00:03:46]The confrontation was over a girl. What began as a fight between rival court members quickly escalated.

[00:03:54]During the incident, Levi was caught with a gun. For the school authorities, there was only one decision to make.

[00:04:03]He was expelled from federal government college, Vanikia.

[00:04:08]For many people, that should have been the end of the story.

[00:04:12]But for Lever Emot, it was only the beginning of a much darker journey.

[00:04:17]Expulsion should have been the wakeup call that changed Livera Emot's life.

[00:04:22]For many young people, being thrown out of school after being caught with a gun would have been enough to walk away from crime and violence.

[00:04:30]But for Levi, it had the opposite effect.

[00:04:34]Instead of escaping the world of cotism, he was about to sink even deeper into it. After leaving federal government college, Vandikia, Lever enrolled at the college of advanced and professional studies in Makodi, Benway state to study for his interim joint metriculation board program. He was no longer just a secondary school student trying to fit in. By this time he already had a reputation and connections within the underground world of confraternities.

[00:05:04]Having belonged to black skull which served as a junior affiliate of the black axe. The next step seemed almost automatic.

[00:05:12]Levi became a member of the black axe confraternity.

[00:05:17]But his initiation would not take place in Benway state. According to Levi, the initiation exercise there had already been concluded before he gained admission.

[00:05:28]Instead, he was taken hundred of kilometers away to Abu Bakatafu Beway University in Botchi where he was formally initiated into the black axe.

[00:05:38]With that initiation, Levi was no longer operating at the secondary school level.

[00:05:44]He had entered one of Nigeria's most feared confraternities.

[00:05:48]Soon violence became part of everyday life.

[00:05:52]Makodi became a battlefield as black ax members repeatedly clashed with their longtime rivals, the Vikings.

[00:06:00]These were not ordinary student disagreements.

[00:06:03]They were carefully planned attacks, ambushes, and revenge missions carried out by rival confraternities determined to dominate the streets and campuses.

[00:06:13]During one of those clashes, Levi's luck ran out.

[00:06:17]He was ambushed by members of the Vikings.

[00:06:21]As the attack began, his fellow Black Axe members fled for safety. Levi was left behind.

[00:06:29]The Vikings descended on him with brutal force.

[00:06:33]They beat him mercilessly until he lost consciousness.

[00:06:37]According to Levi, his attackers began discussing what to do with him. Some wanted to burn him alive. Others suggested throwing him into the river Baneway and letting him drown. His death seemed only moments away.

[00:06:53]But fate had one unexpected twist.

[00:06:56]Among the Vikings was Levi's own elder brother.

[00:07:00]Despite belonging to a rival confraternity, his brother stepped in and pleaded for his life. His intervention stopped the execution.

[00:07:09]Although Levi had already passed out from the beating, he was spared.

[00:07:14]Many people would have taken that as a second chance.

[00:07:18]Levi did not. Instead of walking away, the attack only hardened him. He returned to the streets and continued participating in campus battles.

[00:07:29]Determined to retaliate against his enemies.

[00:07:32]But the violence kept escalating.

[00:07:35]Makodi gradually became too dangerous for him.

[00:07:39]Rev court groups were actively searching for him, waiting for the next opportunity to strike.

[00:07:45]At the same time, the police were also on his trail over robbery operations he allegedly participated in both within and outside the campus.

[00:07:54]Levi knew he could not keep surviving on lock forever.

[00:07:58]The next time his enemies caught him, his elder brother might not be there to save him. So, he made a decision.

[00:08:06]He left Makodi completely and secured admission into the University of Mediguri, hoping distance would give him a fresh start. He planned to keep a low profile, stay out of trouble, and disappear from the radar.

[00:08:20]But Levi was about to discover a painful truth.

[00:08:24]In the world he had chosen, there was no hiding place.

[00:08:29]Just when Levi thought he had escaped his past, his past came looking for him.

[00:08:34]He had traveled hundreds of kilometers from Benway to Meduguri, hoping to start over quietly.

[00:08:41]But in the world of cortism, distance means very little. Once you are known, you are rarely forgotten.

[00:08:48]At the University of Mediguri, Levi kept a low profile. He wanted to stay away from trouble and focus on his studies in geography.

[00:08:58]But it did not take long before someone recognized him as a member of the Black Axe Confraternity.

[00:09:04]Word quickly spread across the underground network.

[00:09:08]The message was simple. One of their own had arrived on campus, but was refusing to associate with the group.

[00:09:16]Soon, Black Axe members approached him.

[00:09:19]They mounted pressure on him until he began moving with them again. Before long, the quiet life he had hoped for disappeared.

[00:09:28]The moment Levi returned to the confraternity, he also returned to being a target.

[00:09:34]The rivalry between the Black Axe and the Vikings followed him to Mediguri.

[00:09:39]After one violent clash between both groups, the Vikings allegedly tracked him to his residence with one mission to kill him. But fate intervened again.

[00:09:50]Levi had stepped out to buy cigarettes.

[00:09:53]When the attackers arrived and did not find him, they mistook his friend for him and killed the young man instead.

[00:10:00]It happened in 2008.

[00:10:03]News quickly spread that Leva Emot had been killed. But the person lying dead was actually his innocent friend.

[00:10:11]It was another reminder that violence does not only destroy those who participate in it. It also destroys innocent lives caught in the middle.

[00:10:21]Levi's education also paid the price.

[00:10:25]Although he was studying geography at the University of Mediguri, he never completed his degree. Once again, Cutism had stolen another opportunity from him.

[00:10:36]But things would get even worse.

[00:10:39]Leva eventually became involved with an armed robbery syndicate.

[00:10:44]According to his account, the group carried out a bank robbery. While traveling towards Jos, he was arrested by security operatives.

[00:10:54]He spent about one year in prison.

[00:10:57]In 2011, he regained his freedom, but his court case was still pending.

[00:11:03]Many people would have seen prison as a final warning. Levi did not. He returned to another robbery operation and was arrested again. Even his own lawyer eventually gave up on defending him because despite already facing criminal charges, Levi kept returning to robbery.

[00:11:22]It became a cycle of crime, arrest, prison, release, and crime again.

[00:11:28]According to Levi, he was in and out of prison about five different times.

[00:11:34]As the years passed, the cost of the life he had chosen became painfully clear. He watched about 34 of his friends die. Some were killed by rival court groups. Others were shot by the police during violent confrontations.

[00:11:50]One after another, familiar faces disappeared until very few were left.

[00:11:55]Eventually, Levi reached a point where he could no longer ignore the destruction around him. He made the decision to walk away from cotism completely.

[00:12:06]He renounced his membership in the black axe and turned his back on the criminal lifestyle that had consumed his youth.

[00:12:13]Today, Levi says he has chosen a different path.

[00:12:17]He now preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ using his own experiences to warn young people about the dangers of cortism, violence and crime. His story is not one of glory. It is a story of opportunities wasted, families broken, friends buried, and years lost to prison cells and bloodshed.

[00:12:38]If there is one lesson to take away from Lever Motors journey, it is this.

[00:12:42]Joining a court may look like a shortcut to power, respect or protection, but the destination is often pain, regret, and destruction.

[00:12:52]Please say no to cultism.

[00:12:55]Say no to criminal activities.

[00:12:58]And above all, say yes to peace.