Abstract

Most African universities including Nigeria have witnessed youth violent activities laced with campus
confraternities. The disturbing phenomenon has led to several theories on the emergence of this worrisome trend
and what could be done to stave it off. This paper reviewed the major theoretical perspectives on the campus
cult-violence and its attendant psychopathological behaviour among Nigerian youths. The review is selective and
confined to the theoretical and investigative perspectives which presumably best fit Nigerian models of
socio-cultural background. In the light of the existing empirical research which bears upon these theoretical
conclusions; a conceptual framework – psycho-infrastructuralism was proposed as an intervention model. The
framework shows the linkages between campus cult-violence and key factors of psycho-personality bias,
frustration-aggression hypothesis, ethno-political theory and the environmentalist perspectives. It is suggested that,
as a complex dynamic process, campus cult-violence activities and its key covariates must be measured and
analyzed within psycho-infrastructural model.

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