Oyo school abduction raises fears of insurgent spread

A mass abduction of schoolchildren in Oyo State has punctured the south’s sense of distance from Nigeria’s insurgency, raising fears that armed groups operating from forests in Kwara and Kogi are pushing deeper into President Bola Tinubu’s political heartland.

The attack, which took place on 15 May in the Ogbomoso axis near the volatile Kwara border, is being treated by security analysts and regional leaders as the first large-scale school abduction in the South West, a region long seen as relatively insulated from the school kidnappings and jihadist violence that have devastated parts of northern Nigeria.

Authorities said at least 40 pupils and teachers were abducted. Among them was a mathematics teacher, who the attackers later executed on camera in what appeared to be a warning to the government. Schools in affected communities have since been shut, while anxious parents are keeping children at home.

‘Series of kidnappings’

The incident marks one of the gravest attacks in the region since the June 2022 massacre at a Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, where gunmen killed around 50 worshippers and injured dozens more. But this time the target was a school – the symbol of a crisis that many in the South West had previously associated with Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger or Borno states.

“This shows that the Yoruba in the South West must prepare for this issue of insecurity,” says Gani Adams, the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland. “We have had a series of kidnappings in different states, but we have not witnessed mass kidnapping in Yorubaland.”

Oyo, Osun and Ekiti share porous borders with Kwara and Kogi, leaving communities vulnerable to raids

The location is central to the concern. Ogbomoso and Oriire lie close to the borderlands linking Oyo, Kwara and Kogi – a forested corridor where armed groups have become increasingly active. In January, suspected terrorists killed five forest guards at a National Park Service facility in Oriire, the same local government area where the school attack occurred.

Security analysts say the pattern mirrors developments in Kwara, where armed groups have overrun rural communities, displaced residents and used forests as operational bases. Oyo, Osun and Ekiti share porous borders with Kwara and Kogi, leaving communities vulnerable to raids by mobile groups who can strike and retreat into difficult terrain.

Rapid political response

The attack has forced a rapid political response. On Wednesday, Oyo Governor Seyi Makinde signed an executive order to bring hunters, vigilantes and local security groups into the state’s security strategy by registering them and defining their scope of operations.

We must face the reality that the enemies have surrounded us

“Our administration will leave no stone unturned to respond decisively to prevent a recurrence of such attacks,” Makinde said, urging residents of Oriire and other border communities to remain calm. “The security agencies are already working together to address this incident.”

Makinde said more personnel had been deployed to the affected area and that security agencies had restored normalcy. Community hunters and state-backed security outfits have joined rescue operations, though the search has been difficult.

A local hunter involved in the effort said at least three members of the rescue team had been killed in the forest. The military says contact has been established with the kidnappers and that progress is being made.

The governor’s order responds directly to demands from local security groups, including the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Agbekoya, hunters’ associations and other militias, which have asked South West governors for formal authorisation, funding and logistics to go after armed groups in the forests.

“We must face the reality that the enemies have surrounded us,” says Wasiu Afolabi, leader of the OPC. The group has called on governors to “get all hands on board” and work with local organisations that know the forests and communities.

Defining the threat

South West governors are not being accused uniformly of complacency, but there is a growing perception that they must act more decisively. In 2020, the six states in the region launched Amotekun(meaning leopard), a joint security outfit intended to strengthen local intelligence and community policing.

Six years later, regional leaders and analysts say the force remains constrained by weak funding, limited equipment and uncertainty over the extent of its powers.

Chris Andrew, a retired military intelligence officer, says that federal authorities and state governments have failed to define the threat clearly. He says the attackers should not be treated merely as “bandits” if they are part of a wider terrorist networkexploiting Nigeria’s ungoverned forests.

“The South West must start empowering people, as little as the Olode,” he says, referring to traditional night watchmen. “These are the structures we knew in the South West in the past. Today, you don’t see the Olode. The region must bring them back, train and fund them.”

The immediate question is whether the abducted pupils and teachers can be rescued

The attack is also feeding into the national debate over state police. Tinubu has asked the Senate to fast-track the legal framework for state policing, reflecting a growing consensus that federal security agencies are too stretched to respond quickly to rural attacks, forest hideouts and cross-border raids.

For Tinubu, the political risk is not that he had claimed to have solved Nigeria’s security crisis. He has not. Rather, the attack tests his repeated promise to defeat terrorism through a tougher domestic posture and closer security co-operation with partners including the US, France and Turkiye. A mass abduction in Oyo brings that promise into his own political base.

Whether it changes voting behaviour is less clear. Political activity has continued, with large crowds still turning out for APC primaries. The opposition remains weak, and in many parts of Nigeria, elections are shaped as much by party machinery, patronage and inducements as by government performance.

But public anger is visible. In some Oyo communities, residents have torn down Tinubu campaign billboards. The Nigeria Union of Teachers has called for three days of prayer and fasting, while viral videos have shown traditional worshippers invoking ancestral deities against the attackers.

The immediate question is whether the abducted pupils and teachers can be rescued. The larger question is whether the Oyo attack becomes an isolated trauma – or the moment when Nigeria’s forest-based kidnapping crisis forced the South West to rebuild its security model. (Thee Africa Report)