After 56 harrowing days, the 44 abductees in the Oriire community of Ogbomoso LGA are now out of the forest. These are schoolchildren and their teachers. Two of the teachers had been killed after the abduction while another was killed on their school ground. A commercial bike rider was also killed as the abduction unfolded. But now, these traumatised Nigerians are being reunited with their families. Their rescue is a demonstration of what can happen when a people come together to reject evil. The state is gingered to act and results are achieved. This is what the terrorist sympathisers and rehabilitators up north, the Arewa Consultative Forum and the Northern Elders Forum, not to leave out those who shed bucketfuls of crocodile tears and seized the occasion of the abduction to play politics while pretending to be calling for the rescue of the kidnap victims.
Most of them have gone silent, mourning in their closets; now it’s been confirmed that the abductees have been rescued. They are demanding CCTV footage and other proof that the abductees were at any time victims of a mass abduction. Such wickedness from supposed sympathisers! As if anyone cares what they think. And all seems well that has ended well. But… yes, a storm seems to be gathering again. In his statewide broadcast following the rescue of the kidnap victims, Oyo State governor SeyiMakinde struck most of the right notes. But something else stood out like a sore thumb in that broadcast. That was the governor’s call for an independent probe of the ‘circumstances’ that surrounded the abduction of the children and their teachers.
