The insouciance or seeming indifference of the South West governors and other political leaders as well as traditional rulers to the wave of the renewed insecurity in the region is unnerving. Their silence in the midst of the obloquy that has been trailing the abduction of 39 pupils/students and seven teachers from three Oyo State schools is too loud for comfort.
While the gale of angry protests swirls like a cyclone across the country, from state to state and from trade union as well as civil society body to the other, most of the political and traditional leaders of a region that cuddles education like a new born baby, have kept strangely mum.
The victims were kidnapped on May 15, 2026 when terrorists attacked three schools in Oriire Local Government Area near Ogbomoso — Community Grammar School and L.A. Primary School in Ahoro-Esinle as well as Baptist Nursery and Primary School located in Yawota, Oyo State.
The incident triggered widespread outrage across the country and renewed concerns about the safety of schools and learning environments. The abductors killed two teachers, including Mr. Michael Oyedokun, a mathematics teacher, who was decapitated.
By yesterday (Sunday), the victims, including toddlers between ages two and seven years, had spent about 23 days in captivity, being treated to the worst of savagery. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR) and other various civil society organizations have joined in the nationwide protest against the irksome abduction.
Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, backed by the Federal Government, immediately commenced moves to rescue the victims. A joint rescue team made up of soldiers, policemen and local vigilantes was raised to free the victims. The governor also hinted about the move to negotiate with the heartless criminals so the victims could be rescued unhurt.
However, the hope of the victims’ rescue and that of the Borno pupils remains tall because of the abductors’ unreasonable demands, which are portentous of trouble should government accede to all of them. According to the Oyo State House of Assembly, the kidnappers’ specific demands include N1billion ransom to be paid into a single account in Benin Republic, alongside two Toyota Hilux vehicles.
They are also reportedly demanding changes to certain state laws and land rights in their favour, including the implementation of Sharia law as well as a swap with some high-profile terrorists who are their commanders and notorious bandits in government custody.
Difficult terrain and fears that the pupils and teachers may be hurt should security forces bulldoze their way into the kidnappers’ hideout are also some of the factors that are hampering their timely rescue.
In the midst of all the fuss, the sister of the immediate past Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, and her 12-year-old twins were kidnapped last week right in an otherwise idyllic street of Ibadan while the children were being taken to school. They have, however, been rescued unhurt.
But our governors appear to be too consumed by the 2027 politicking to be bothered by the present danger facing their people. This is the feverish season of primaries when the political parties are nominating their candidates for the various elective positions for the 2027 general elections.
Those among the governors who are in their first term are preoccupied aligning and realigning political forces as well as honing their electoral structures to be sure-footed for second term. And of course, many of those who are approaching the twilight of their second term are also manoeuvring to supplant their incumbent senators in the next Senate. Power and its trappings, however fleeting, are like a lifeblood to them. That probably and reasonably explains the unusual quietude from their excellencies.
Up till now, the South West Governors Forum has not deemed it fit to meet to work out the needed joint framework to halt further incursions of the malcontent militants into their region. They are carrying on as if all is well.
Yet, these brackish characters, most of them fleeing from the various theatres of military onslaughts in the North, are daily prancing around, swarming all over the South. Many more are flocking into the country like locusts from neighbouring countries.
Already, the Southwest forest belt is bristling with the soulless militants. According to the Are Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Chief Gani Adams, they have infiltrated at least 40 of the region’s 137 local governments. They are busy spreading their tentacles and consolidating their hold on the region without any visible challenge.
Not only are their excellencies behaving as if they are unconcerned about the invasive terrorists’ incursions, they are not encouraging non-state actors who are gutsy about the necessity of ridding the region of terrorists.
The Yoruba Nation activist, Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho, has been vociferous, begging the FG and South West governors to recognize and register his Iru Ekun Security Network, so its operatives could invade the forests and flush out the bandits.
The proposed 50,000-man security force, Igboho pledges, is specifically designed to combat banditry, kidnapping and attacks by rogue herders operating in forests across the South-West and Kwara State. Nobody is answering him.
Gani Adam has similarly alleged that he has been appealing to the Southwest governors for over two years now to collaborate with him to stop the invasion of the region’s forests by bandits. He said he got no response.
History appears to be repeating itself. This was the ambivalent attitude and prevarications displayed by the Goodluck Jonathan government over the Boko Haram problem between 2010 and 2011, which inadvertently allowed the insurgents to grow tap roots. That government woke up too late to realize that the problem had become hydra-headed. The Northeast region has been paying for that dereliction for over 16 years now.
The South West governors’ latter-day reticence and lukewarmness is a drawdown to their intrepid action in 2020 when the late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, as the chairman of the South West Governors Forum then, led them to successfully resist the Buhari administration’s insufferable interference and magisterial onslaught in establishing the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN), code named Amotekun.
Although they were prevented from establishing Amotekun as a single regional force, as originally conceived, for fear that it might be used for a possible secessionist agenda, the governors succeeded in establishing Amotekun corps in each of the South West states under state laws, as a bold response to the ferocious security maelstrom shaped by herders’ sanguinary activities under the Buhari government.
Amotekun works alongside the police, military, civil defence, hunters and local vigilante groups to gather intelligence and patrol rural communities. It has become the region’s primary community-based security architecture.
The Forum’s approach has been to build a regional security architecture around Amotekun, intelligence sharing, joint funding and advocacy for state police, while trying to coordinate the six states’ responses to increasingly cross-border security threats.
Sanwo-Olu was unanimously elected chairman of the South West Governors’ Forum on June 10, 2024, succeeding Akeredolu. The Forum held its last meeting on November 24, 2025 at the Governor’s Office Secretariat in Ibadan, Oyo State. During that meeting, the governors discussed regional security, economic development, agriculture and approved plans for a South-West Regional Security Trust Fund.
Amotekun corps has been engaging in intelligence gathering as well as rural patrols. The corps has also succeeded in arresting a lot of criminal suspects across the South-West. But the corps lacks the sophistication to handle emerging challenges in the security corridor, especially the influx of a large number of bandits into the region.
The South West governors must wake up from its current lethargy and rally through their Forum for a stronger push that will rid the region of the existential threats posed by the daredevils.
While Amotekun and the state police, whenever it comes on stream, will be highly useful in the areas of rural communities’ patrols and intelligence gathering, the best option before the governors now is to invest in technology.
Like we admonished in the last editorial, let the governors harness resources through their trust fund and, as a matter of urgency, and with the Federal Government’s assistance, acquire drones with which the bandits who are holed up in the region!s forests should be flushed out.
They should also invest heavily in constant Intelligence, Surveillance and Renaissance (ISR) exercises to accurately isolate the terrorists in their locations to avoid civilian casualties in the near-future airstrikes.
Let their excellencies, in the interim, work with the Federal Government and the security agencies to free the Oyo school kidnapped children and teachers and then safeguard schools from further attacks.
