Kidnappers Said They Are Not Boko Haram, They Are ISWAP; I Was Last Captured & Last Released -Teacher

Zacchaeus Olatunde, one of the teachers rescued after spending 56 days in captivity following the abduction of teachers and pupils in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State, has revealed that the armed men who held them identified themselves as members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), while insisting they were not affiliated with Boko Haram.

The contents of the conversations that Olatunde and the other captives had with their captors during the weeks they were held in the jungle were revealed in a piece published on Sunday, July 19, 2026, by Punch Newspaper.

He stated the abductors told the hostages over and over again that they were members of ISWAP and that they were not affiliated with Boko Haram.

The group denied being Boko Haram, he claimed. According to them, they are ISWAP.

The fact that the kidnappers communicated with the prisoners in more than one language was also revealed by Olatunde.

He stated that “They spoke Hausa, Nupe, English and Yoruba.”

He believed that the abductors’ linguistic diversity contributed to the air of mystery surrounding their abduction, as did the fact that they spoke different languages. Throughout the 56-day ordeal, he maintained, the captives had no idea where they were kept because no one had ever told them.

The freed educator pondered on his own kidnapping experience and disclosed that, on the day the kidnappers struck, he was the school’s last victim.

He continued by saying: “I was the last person who was captured in the school and I was the last person that was released.”

He has previously come clean about staying in the kidnappers’ camp for longer than the rest of the captives due to a broken key in his shackles, so his story lines up with that. As the kidnappers battled to free him, Olatunde claims that the glitch caused a delay in his release.

As he recalled the event, he claimed that one of the kidnappers had suggested chopping off his hand in order to free it from the damaged shackles.

According to him: “One of them suggested that they should cut off my hand so they could remove the handcuffs because the key had broken.”

Another group member, he alleged, shot the concept down the river.

“Someone else said, ‘No, don’t do that,’” he recounted. They eventually uncuffed my hands with a rope.

Two times a day, the hostages were served a modest diet of rice, a few beans, onions, margarine, and salt, according to Olatunde’s account of their living conditions.