Analysing reactions to the release of 44 pupils and teachers abducted on May 15, 2026, from three schools in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State, it’s safe to conclude that all’s fair in love, war and Nigerian politics.
Anything that can be deployed in the desperate politicking leading to next year’s elections is being unleashed – everything from fake news, distorted statistics and the weaponisation of ignorance and human misery.
Exactly two months ago, gunmen stormed the rustic settings in Southwest Nigeria where the primary schools are located and snatched 46 pupils and teachers. Among the hapless hostages was a toddler. While executing their operation, the attackers riding on motorcycles killed two people – one they mistook for a pursuer, the other an innocent teacher. Thereafter they disappeared with their victims into the expansive Old Oyo National Park.
It was the latest in a string of mass school abductions that’s had the authorities at their wit’s end. Just as one saga is resolved, another is activated in some other isolated location.
The Oriire abductions captured the imagination of the nation because it was a reminiscence of similar incidents which began in 2014 with the Chibok schoolgirls and would be replicated in places like Kebbi, Kaduna, Niger and Borno States.
If people were already transfixed by the latest incident, matters would be further sensationalised with the beheading of one of the teachers by the abductors.
Early information suggested that the gunmen were linked to the Ansaru terrorist group and only interested in the release of two of their convicted leaders. The gruesome murder of the teacher may have sent a message to the authorities that they meant business, but it also provoked the kind of multi-agency collaboration that’s not been seen in a long while.
With the government under pressure to rescue the captives unharmed, a siege was activated once the location of the kidnappers and their victims was identified. Much is now known about how the security forces broke the will of the gunmen.
While it lasted, the unresolved abduction was a whip that the opposition regularly deployed to portray the Bola Tinubu administration as incapable of securing the nation. At the 50-day mark many were beginning to wonder whether we had another Chibok schoolgirls’ situation on our hands. The mismanagement of that episode is widely believed to have contributed to the fall of the Goodluck Jonathan presidency.
No one could blame the opposition for taking full advantage of the government’s difficulties. The authorities couldn’t order a full scale military assault for fear that abductees could become collateral damage – resulting in costly political consequences. All they were left with was selling hope to an increasingly anxious public while patiently waiting to see if their strategy produced the desired end.
Days before the breakthrough came, Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, went visiting Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde. He emerged from the conclave to announce that for the length of the crisis Tinubu hadn’t called the governor. This information was calculated to portray the president as isolated, out-of-touch and lacking empathy. It set off a frenzy among television talking heads.
Less than 72 hours later, the nation was agog with a different kind of chatter after a social media post by the president’s media adviser, Bayo Onanuga, announcing the release went viral. Infectious jubilation swept the land. There were songs of praises and wild tooting of horns in Ogbomosho as the convoy of triumphant troops traversed the town en-route Ibadan with the freed hostages in tow.
Soon, another type of Nigerian argument would set the internet on fire. Critics of government who are often quick to fire off statements in the wake of bad news, reacted awkwardly to the release. Rather than join in the widespread jubilation, they chose nit-picking. Some wondered how much was paid as ransom, concluding that the only way a positive outcome could have been achieved was by exchange of cash.
Outspoken activist Aisha Yesufu demanded footage of the rescue operation is made public to convince the sceptical like her. The usually swift Obi and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar were just as tardy with their responses. When they eventually spoke it was with miserly praise for the security forces, while being careful not to extend any to their Commander-in-Chief Tinubu.
In fact, the former VP took things to the nadir when he bellyached that the president ought to have made a national broadcast as though that would have changed the material fact that the saga had been brought to a successful conclusion with all captives accounted for. It was a poor outing for the critics who came across as joyless, bitter and opportunistic.
But worse was to come. Makinde, in whose domain, the near-tragedy played out, suddenly had a lot to say. It’s no secret that he’s had a falling out with Tinubu over the post-2023 polls sharing of electoral spoils. He has openly declared he won’t back the incumbent for re-election. Instead, he’s thrown his hat into the ring.
On a recent visit to his ally, Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, he insinuated that his decision to run for president somehow triggered the Oriire kidnapping. “I declared to run for the presidency of Nigeria at four o’clock, and by 9 a.m. the following morning, the children were abducted,” he said.
Two days ago at an event to receive the freed abductees, he called for the United Nations (UN) and international human rights organisations to probe the entire abduction. The call in itself is embarrassing as it exposes the governor’s ignorance. The UN isn’t a supervisor of nations that’s going to be meddling in their internal affairs. It has absolutely no power to poke around in a sub-national without the say so of the sovereign.
Whether the governor truly believes that the abductions were contrived to do him mischief it’s hard to tell. But the most feverish conspiracy theorist would struggle to sell the idea that government plotted the abduction of primary school pupils and teachers in a rural setting in the president’s Southwest base; engineered the brutal murder of five people, just to stop Makinde’s unstoppable march to the presidency!
Even the governor knows that his bid is the prime example of delusions of grandeur. His rickety platform, the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), until the defection of himself and Bala Mohammed, didn’t have a single councillor nationwide. How this party, given the requirement of nationwide spread, hopes to defeat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) with its 32 governors remains a mystery.
It’s hard to see what Makinde hoped to achieve with his comments over the abductions. Suffice it say that rather than put those he accuses in bad light, they actually diminish him.
No Nigerian discussion is complete without the ethnic or sectional dimension. Some groups have suggested that the Oriire rescue was prioritised because it played out in the president’s backyard. Take the reaction of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) as an example. It’s National Publicity Secretary, Prof. Tukur Muhammad-Baba, while welcoming the return of the captives said the following.
“We fervently appeal to the President Bola Tinubu administration, the security forces and all concerned authorities to ensure the release of all persons still in captivity across states, including Borno, Kaduna, Kwara, Zamfara and every other state where innocent citizens are being subjected to torture arising from their illegal abduction.
“No citizen ought to be subjected to such evil, and the Federal Government, alongside other levels of government, has a sacred duty to tirelessly eliminate this scourge across the country without lopsided attention.”
The bit about “lopsided attention” creates the impression that this is the first time such abductions have been resolved anywhere in the country in recent times. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
On November 21, 2025, 315 students and teachers from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri, Niger State, were seized by gunmen. By December 21 last year, the government announced it had secured the release of all of them.
Late in June, heavily armed men linked to ISWAP attacked Lassa Day Secondary School in the Askira-Uba area of Borno State, abducting close to 50 students who were writing NECO examinations. Joint military and civilian operations rescued 10 candidates, although another 36 are still in captivity. Both incidents happened in the North.
Nigeria is battling a crisis of insecurity, no doubt. The upsurge in terrorist activities should worry all who wish this country well. It’s okay to criticise the performance of the government in this area. But in doing so we shouldn’t lose our humanity and generosity of spirit.
Unfortunately, there’s a bitter species of our citizens prowling the streets and social media who are ever so quick to sacrifice truth and logic just to score some diabolical political point.
