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.

Sources close to the presidential villa also told THE WHISTLER that officials of the Tinubu administration also deeply suspected that Makinde deliberately orchestrated the mass kidnapping to cause disaffection against the president in the South West.

This position was publicly expressed by former governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, who accused Makinde of orchestrating the kidnap to put the Tinubu administration in bad light. Fayose said state governments bear primary responsibility for local security challenges and should not immediately shift attention to the federal government the way Makinde had done.

Fayose claimed that Governor Seyi Makinde failed to respond promptly to the incident, alleging that the governor prioritised political activities over addressing the crisis.

Sources also informed THE WHISTLER in Ibadan that Makinde support groups had started printing “Bring Back Our Children” banners and T-Shirts before the children were eventually rescued on July 10.

The Oyo State Commissioner for Information, Dotun Oyelade, told THE WHISTLER the kidnapping was an “aberration” the state and the federal government had to grapple with. He said before the incident, the state had the plan to employ 300 more Amotekun personnel to beef up security for under-policed communities.

According to him, the state already had 2,800 Amotekun corps.

Asked whether political differences between the president and the governor affected the rescue effort, he said “As the Commissioner for Information Oyo State, I would rather look forward and say that to the extent that we have 46 of those abducted, to the extent that we have 46 of them alive after 56 days living in impossible inclement weather, both rain and sun, no cover over their heads, no medication, sparse food, eating anything that they see in the bush, I think we should be grateful to God. We are not looking back.

“Any information for the future will have to be elicited from investigation that must occur, and we stand by that.”

Asked to explain the relationship between Makinde and Tinubu, the commissioner said, “Well, the public can put one or two together, but what we know in Oyo State is that Governor Seyi Makinde is not one of the governors that have been sucked into the APC; so, he has the right to his own political belief and leanings.”

Doubling down on Makinde’s intention to run against Tinubu in 2027, Oyelade said, “If it plays out in any other personal way, that will have to be resolved by the electorates. “

Asked what the village of Ahoro-Esienle thought about the kidnap and rescue of their children, the Youth Leader of Ahoro-Esienle, Amusa Waheed, who was also an eyewitness, said the community was grateful to the state and federal government for the successful rescue.

“There are other communities where children had been kidnapped and never came back home,” he told THE WHISTLER in Ahoro-Esienle. “We don’t care about any politics that our leaders are playing, we’re just happy the children came back alive.”