Supreme Eiye Confraternity | Principals & Principalities Podcast

In April 2019, Italian investigators hid a camera inside a cult initiation in Palermo, Sicily. What they filmed — a man stripped naked, beaten, sliced with razors, and forced to drink a mixture of his own tears, alcohol, and tapioca — became evidence in a case prosecutors called Operation No Fly Zone. The group behind it was founded in 1965 by seven idealistic students at the University of Ibadan who wanted to build something African, something free. They called themselves Eiye — the bird.In this episode of Principals & Principalities, host Ayomide Odubonojo-Kinoshi traces the Supreme Eiye Confraternity from campus cult wars in Ilorin and Akure — where sixteen people died in a single weekend and a traditional ruler begged police to purge cult members from their own ranks — to the trafficking networks moving women from Nigeria to Sicily, Sardinia, and Barcelona. And we ask why, years after Italian courts secured mafia-related convictions against Eiye members in Palermo, the men who run the network from Nigeria have never been touched.This episode asks the question that defines this podcast: in Nigeria, is crime ever just crime?Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on social media for behind-the-scenes research, upcoming cases, and episode drops.Follow us On⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow us on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Us on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠(x)