By Kayode Emola
Late Friday afternoon, news began to filter on the internet about the rescue of school children and their teachers who were kidnapped at the Orire Local Government in Oyo State on 15 May 2026. Many had given up hope on their recovery from the dungeon, let alone a complete rescue of those who hadn’t already died in the jungle.
I haven’t been kidnapped before or had family members experience such a fate, and I can’t begin to imagine how they or their families must have felt these last few weeks. Knowing what happened to the Chibok girls who were kidnapped in 2014, most would have resigned their fate to the worst possible outcome. Especially, that many Chibok girls are still at large to date as we speak.
As fate would have it, they were released from their captors, who, according to rumours, had suffered casualties in the hands of the security forces during the rescue mission. Seeing the shenanigans of the Oyo State government and the Nigerian security forces, intelligent people would have observed that something about this kidnap and rescue mission was fishy. Not only did the military or the police not give a press conference about the whole process, but the news of their success had been left entirely to the media in rather unusual fashion.
No sooner had many volunteer hunters and pro-Yoruba militia offered to help rescue the victims than the Oyo State Governor himself came out publicly to reject the offer. One would have thought he had a better solution to rescue the victims, other than the usual we are doing everything within our powers to bring the victims back home.
The Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, in a complete dig on Chief Sunday Adeyemo (aka Igboho Oosa), stated that he, the Governor, will deal decisively with Chief Adeyemo if he attempts to rescue the victims. Without providing any running commentary to reassure the victims and their families on the rescue efforts, making the whole kidnapping issue look like a movie set-up from the beginning.
If not, how were the terrorists able to capture over fifty-five people in a school and remain in Oyo State forests for over fifty-five days without any confrontation? If we continue to let these terrorists run amok on Yoruba soil, are we not setting a dangerous precedent for other maligned groups to do the same again? Are there no police or military helicopters that could mount proper surveillance as to the movement of these terrorists?
After all, they wouldn’t have stayed in one location for fear of being hunted down. Even if there are no military or police helicopters, could the Oyo State Government not have acquired drones that could scope out the forests for camps and possible movement of people, despite the billions of naira they receive as security allowance?
My guess is that this whole show is being put on by some powerful people in government to make the people second-guess their safety and security, whilst the politicians carry out their devious election scheme. After all, elections are just a few months away, and all the politicians care about are their next political positions and appointments rather than the welfare and security of the people.
The whole rescue mission of the Oyo victims leaves more questions than answers, but we can still bask in the euphoria that the victims have been rescued, nonetheless. Their friends and families can now have some peace and closure on this matter, whilst the victims themselves recover from the whole ordeal.
This type of incident should not have happened in the first place if we, the Yoruba, were not part of the failed project called the Nigeria project. It is a reminder that until and unless we get our independent sovereign Yoruba nation, we will continue to experience harsh realities like the kidnapping of those innocent victims.
