How Politics, Network Failure Prevented Early Rescue Of Oyo Kidnap Victims

Yowota is a rural community ringed by a dense, overbearing forest that nests into the jungle of Oyo National Park. The forest encircles Yawota and Ahoro-Esienle communities, among others like a thick green curtain, protecting them from the vagaries of the elements.

But it was the green thicket that also sheltered the danger that walked into the two communities in Oriire LGA of Oyo State on May 15, 2026 leading to the abduction of 39 pupils and six teachers from their schools.

On this day, Chief Emmanuel Alade, the eldest man in Yawota, was sitting outside his home when 12 hooded young boys dressed in military camouflage rode into the village on six motorcycles. They emerged from the forest at about 9: 30 am when most men in the village had gone to their farms.

Chief Alade, 95, not having any hunch that a disaster was about to happen, watched the armed visitors ride towards the other end of the village where the Baptist Church cited a nursery and primary school.

Within minutes of their entry, he started hearing gunshots.

“I didn’t know what was happening, I was just hearing gunshots,” he narrated when THE WHISTLER met him in his house at Yawota on July 18.

“I was still sitting here in my house when they drove back with the school children and teachers they abducted.

“They had two extra motorcycles which they stole from our people, and they used them to escape into the forest where they came from with their victims.

“I was helpless, and the pupils and teachers were also helpless because there was no one to confront the bandits.”

The elderly man said after the bandits escaped into the forest; they tried to call the Amotekun operatives guarding communities inside the forest but the villages had no network.

“We don’t have a police station here, the closest one is in Ogbomosho which is about 20 kilometres away. The same with Amotekun.

“But our community does not have GSM network so there was no way we could call the authorities.

“It was our hunters that first mobilised to the forest after news of the abduction had gone round the communities. A batch of the terrorists had also abducted school children, teachers and a principal from Community Grammar School, Ahoro-Esienle.

“Hours later, the police came and joined the hunters to comb the forest till late in the evening but by then the terrorists had moved into their comfort zone in the forest, so they returned.

“The next day the first batch of soldiers had arrived to join the police, hunters and Amotekun to begin the search again.

“After hours of combing the forest, they saw the terrorists; but when they tried to pursue them, the bandits threw grenades at them, killing one of our hunters and forcing the rescue team to retreat for re-enforcement.

It was the third day that the military deployed more personnel to continue the search. The effort yielded results as they were able to sight the location of the bandits. But when the troops advanced to force a rescue, the terrorists warned they would kill their captives if the military should attack them. This forced the military to halt further attempts at rescue.

It was at this stage that political differences between the state and the federal government started playing out. Up till this time, Governor Seyi Makinde had yet to visit the communities or called President Bola Tinubu, according to official sources.

This was confirmed by Chief Alade. “We started seeing government officials from the state by the third day, followed by a federal government delegation led by the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.

“I was also invited by the DSS along with a Fulani man who lived in the next village. They asked us to explain what happened and what we saw. I was released the next day but they detained the Fulani man.”

Several other eyewitnesses to the kidnap also corroborated Chief Alade’s account of the incident.

Governor Seyi Makinde visited the families of the abducted pupils and teachers in the Yawota and Ahoro-Esinele communities on May 30, fifteen days after the incident. The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, led a high-powered federal delegation sent by President Bola Tinubu to the communities a day after Makinde’s visit.

So how did politics affect the rescue? The victims spent 56 days in captivity while the state and federal government related with mutual suspicion.

Governor Makinde obviously suspected that the Tinubu administration was behind the abduction—a reason he called on international human right organisations to conduct an independent investigation of the abduction and rescue.

Makinde officially declared his intention to run for president in the 2027 general election on the platform of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) on May 14, 2026, and a day after, terrorists abducted 39 pupils and teachers from his state! So, to the governor, according to sources close to him, the abduction was orchestrated to embarrass and ruin his presidential ambition the way insecurity was allegedly used by the opposition against former president, Goodluck Jonathan in 2014.