AFP, LAGOS
Dozens of schoolchildren kidnapped during a rare attack in southwestern Nigeria 56 days ago have been rescued, the presidency said on Friday.Gunmen who Nigeria’s army accused of being Boko Haram jihadists abducted 46 pupils and staff from three schools in the southwestern state of Oyo on May 15.The attack fueled fears of Islamist violence spreading into the country’s southwest.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu speaks at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia on Aug. 25 last year.
The raid on schools in Esiele and Yawota — two agrarian communities that sit on the edge of the vast Old Oyo National Park — quickly became a hot-button issue, prompting protests, a month-long statewide teachers’ strike and high-profile condemnation.“I am profoundly happy that our security forces successfully rescued the abducted pupils and teachers from Orire, Ogbomoso in Oyo State today after a military, police and intelligence-driven operation that neutralized some of the terrorists that perpetrated the evil act and the arrest of eight of them,” Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said.
Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga first broke the news on X, in which he also posted pictures of some the children.Southwest Nigeria has long been considered one of the safest regions in a country struggling with multiple security crises.Kidnappings for ransom are an ongoing battle for authorities in Nigeria’s restive northern regions, but mass abductions have been rare in the south.Oyo is one of Nigeria’s most populous states, and its capital, Ibadan, is a major education hub.The “terrorists” had demanded the release of one of their members who is being prosecuted by the authorities, Onanuga said.One of the teachers thanked Tinubu in a video shared by Onanuga and said: “We understand your commitment to our safety and we appreciate all you did for us.”“Security operatives ... tried so much and that is why we are still alive right now,” she added.Nigerian Minister of Defense Christopher Musa said the kidnappers were trying to use the students as “leverage” with the Nigerian government, which is holding some of their commanders. The kidnappers had threatened to kill their hostages if security forces moved in on them, Musa said. It remains unclear how their release was secured, but Onanuga said there “was no quid pro quo in the rescue.”More than 40 other schoolchildren — some as young as two — were taken from their schools in northeast Borno state on the same day as the Oyo kidnapping. They are still in captivity. Boko Haram has long used mass school kidnappings as a tool of terror, most notably in April 2014 when it abducted 276 schoolgirls from a secondary school in Chibok in northeastern Borno state.
