Edo State Governor Monday Okpebholo has been commended for the downward trend in cult related killings in the state.
Mr. John Mayaki, a former Chief Press Secretary to ex-Governor Godwin Obaseki, said the calm was neither accidental nor imagined.
It was, he argued, the clearest evidence yet of a decisive shift in the state’s security trajectory under Governor Monday Okpebholo.
In a briefing, Mayaki hailed the governor for what he described as a “sharp and measurable decline” in cult and communal killings across the state, particularly in Benin City and other urban flashpoints.
“Who among us has not noticed the difference?” he asked. “For the first time in years, seasonal periods that used to be soaked in fear but this is no longer the case. Today, under Governor Monday Okpebholo, we are experiencing relative calm.”
According to figures compiled from open-source media reports, police statements, state government disclosures and civil society security trackers, Edo State recorded an estimated 180 cult-related killings between 2021 and 2023, a period marked by persistent reprisals and daylight executions.
December 2023 alone saw more than 30 deaths from clashes between rival cult groups, while then-Governor Obaseki publicly acknowledged that roughly 135 lives were lost between July and December 2023, encompassing both cult violence and communal conflicts.
“These were not isolated incidents,” Mr. Mayaki said. “They were routine, predictable and tragically normalized.”
The pattern, he argued, was one of frequency and entrenchment. Under the previous administration, cult violence followed a grim rhythm: attacks, reprisals, press statements condemning the killings, and then silence until the next round. “There was no sustained deterrence,” he said, “and no observable downward trend across eight years.”
By contrast, data from 2025 suggest a markedly different picture. While cult-related violence has not been eliminated, Mr. Mayaki noted that reported fatalities under the current administration have remained in single digits for most periods, with 13 deaths recorded in July 2025, a figure he described as “deeply unfortunate, but incomparable to the cumulative triple-digit tolls of the past.”
“The scale, the frequency and the cumulative death toll have crashed,” he said. “That is the key point.”
Under Governor Okpebholo, cult activity has been reframed as a security emergency, rather than a routine law-and-order problem. The administration has backed this shift with executive actions, legislative support, targeted arrests, bans on identified groups and firm police ultimatums. Incidents, when they occur, are met with rapid deployments rather than delayed responses.
“What we are seeing is disruption. The cycles of reprisal that once defined Edo’s cult wars are being broken before they spiral.”
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Mayaki was careful to avoid claims of total victory. “No serious person will say the problem has been completely eradicated,” he said. “But governance is about direction and responsiveness. On both counts, this administration has changed the narrative.”
He said residents are more relax without fear this festive period and in their daily life. In neighborhoods once accustomed to curfews imposed by fear rather than law, evenings have grown quieter. Traders report fewer sudden closures. Families speak of movement without constant anxiety.
Mayaki insists, the evidence points in one direction. “In the past, cult violence was higher in volume, longer in duration and deeply entrenched,” he said. “Under Okpebholo, it is being confronted, constrained and rolled back.”
