Opinion

[ICYMI] Ilorin and Dan Fodio’s deadstock

Published

2 years ago

July 16, 2024

Trends Admin

[ICYMI] Ilorin and Dan Fodio’s deadstock

By Lasisi Olagunju

(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 15 July, 2024)

Justice Ibrahim Kolapo Gambari, JCA became the Emir of Ilorin in August 1995 and decreed the ‘Kolapo’ in his name abolished. He said he should thenceforth be known and called Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari; all former documents remain valid. He gave no reason for his decision but not a few of us thought it was his way of hiding the Yoruba content in the bloodstream of the House of Shehu Alimi, his Fulani roots. When Emir Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari took that unusual, surprising step, little did he know that the day would come when his aunt, Hajia Maryam, married to a king of Kano, and her sons would suffer discrimination and be tagged ‘Yoruba’.

It is the way of toads to detour into any available crater whenever it discovers it can no longer find its way to the stream. The chairman of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) in Kano State, Hashim Dungurawa, a few days ago addressed journalists in Kano and alleged that President Bola Tinubu was working hard to impose the deposed 15th emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, on the emirate because he shared same Yoruba background with the president. “If the President thinks he will use a few of his kinsmen in Kano and the alleged Bayero’s Yoruba lineage to continue to keep the deposed Emir Aminu Ado Bayero in the state, let him wait for 2027, we will show him that those people will not help him,” Dungurawa warned. When you heard his threats about 2027, you would think that Kano votes mattered in 2023. The votes were like rain water; they were surplus but they were wasted, unhelpful, unuseful to the person they were cast for. The same will happen in 2027.

The Kano NNPP man who spoke is not a lone wolf. He is a member of a preening pack that think themselves special and others of lesser breed. I understand what he voiced out has been in the whispering lips of the sands and boulders of Kano even before the emirship crisis unfolded. They call the deposed emir “son of the Yoruba woman.”

Around here, a child does not claim his father’s compound and disclaim his mother’s homestead. Aminu Ado Bayero is a grandson of the 8th emir of Ilorin; Aminu’s mother was a sister to the mother of the incumbent Ilorin emir. Ordinarily, this long line of Fulani ancestry should be a plus for whoever has it in the Fulani north, but in the peculiar politics of our feudal Nigeria, the Ilorin ruling family would only be recognized as ‘northern’ if they knew their limits. I hope they know now that they are fringe elements and fringe elements can never be allowed to dip their hands into the main bowl of the house.

Hashim Dungurawa, the NNPP chief who said loudly what was being said in whispers, is even said not to be a Fulani himself. He is said to be Hausa – the original owners of Kano before the Dan Fodio Jihad threw them into the sea of the barren street. Did you notice the irony here?

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There is no ‘pure’ blood anywhere. It is 201 years this year that Afonja lost his ancestral throne of Ilorin to the children of Sheikh Alimi, his spiritual adviser and friend. In those two centuries, the children of Alimi, from generation to generation, have remained Fulani only by name, history and ancestry. Mohammodu Odolaye Aremu was a Dadakuada musical artiste of Ilorin ancestry. He died in 1997. He expended a great deal of his career years effusively singing the cultural and political histories of his city of birth for the careful to note and ponder on. Emir Mohammed Sulu-Gambari reigned in Ilorin from 1959 to 1992. He was the father of the present Emir Ibrahim Gambari. Odolaye waxed a record for the grand old man chanting his oríkì. He serenaded him “Alabi Òpó mo gbádùn oko mi ojo/ Súlú Oba gbogbo wa ní Ilorin…(Alabi Opo, I enjoy my lord / Sulu, our king in Ilorin). ‘Alabi’ is a personal Yoruba oríkì; the ‘Opo’ that follows it is the lineage panegyric (oríkì orílè). That lineage is Òpómúléró, the nearest English translation is ‘mainframe’. That is a lineage that feeds stubborn wine to stubborn child and proceeds to send that recalcitrant, drunk child to war. They proudly say they did it to Afonja who went to war never to come back:

Òpó tí ò gboràn, e kojú è síná

Iná tí ò gboràn, e kojú è sómi

Omi tí ò gboràn, baba wa ní á fi pon’tí

Otí tí ò gboràn, e f’ómo líle mu

Omo líle tí ò gboràn, e rán an rojú Ogun

Sebí Ogun náà l’Àfònjá lo tí ò fi padà wálé mó

Omo kèké ta dídùn, aso lèdìdì ènìyàn.

Emir Mohammed Sulu-Gambari was alive when Odolaye waxed his record and called him Alabi Opo. The emir did not ask the bard to shut up and did not say he wasn’t what he was called. He valued and enjoyed the Yoruba content of his existence so much that his children remained valued additions to the cultural assets of the land they inherited while maintaining their links to their paternal ancestors.

It is interesting that people who lost their ‘critical’ voices in the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari’s ruinous reign are now raising their chords. And, Tinubu, because he is a Yoruba man, is the whipping boy for the years of the Buhari locust. What they do with the successor to their Bayajidda II is what the Germans call “den Hund vor dem Löwen schlagen” – beat a dog before/for a lion. They think their throats should be the only expressway to heaven. Dungurawa’s snide broadside to the Yoruba was vilely divisive, provocative and unfortunate but his Kano and Ilorin victims must thank him (and his masters) for waking them up. They (the victims), at least, should be aware now that the butterfly may be winged and fly like a bird, but it is not a bird and won’t be allowed to enjoy bird privileges. It will be interesting to know how ex-emir Aminu, his brothers and sisters in Kano and their uncles in Ilorin took the statement from those they thought were their kinsmen- the authorities in Kano.

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It is very interesting that for the Fulani North, because of the throne of Kano, Ilorin is no longer a Fulani town. God is great. But I commend them. It is always good to drop whatever is not yours no matter how long you’ve held on to it. Ilorin did not start as a settlement of the Fulani; the emirate there is a progeny of conquest. It is a victim of the characteristic Yoruba blind-fight for thrones. They fought and shredded their velvet, the Fulani picked it up and from it sewed an empire. The modern version of how 19th century Yoruba treated their heritage is what you see in Kano and Sokoto today. My friend in Kaduna told me that in Sokoto and Kano after the last elections, deposition of kings was the sole slogan: “Sabon Gwamna, Sabon Sarki” (new governor, new king). And they are working hard at it. That was the Yoruba misadventure that delivered Ilorin to Fulani forces in 1823/24.

There is an irony in some Kano people calling a prince or princess from Ilorin an outsider. The founder of Ilorin emirate, Sheikh Al-Salih (alias Shehu Alimi), was a Fulani who hailed from Tankara in present Niger Republic. It was from there he came to school in Bunza, present Kebbi State in today’s Nigeria. Just like him, Uthman Dan Fodio, the founder of the Sokoto caliphate, and by extension the emirate of Kano, was born in Maratta in the Tahoua region of today’s Niger Republic. An account said Alimi was a contemporary of Uthman Dan Fodio with Jibril bin Umar as their common teacher. But history did not say Alimi started out as a jihadist in the mould of Dan Fodio. He was a simple preacher and itinerant spiritualist who hawked his knowledge and power from one Yoruba town to the other. He was in Old Oyo, Iseyin, Ogbomoso and Kuwo before Afonja, a prince of Oyo, invited him to Ilorin in aid of his independence (rebellion) against his lord, the Alaafin. The rest is well recorded by history.

The more you read Ilorin’s well-documented history, the more you understand the tapestry of its ethnic configuration. There are tomes of materials available to the patient who is also curious to know. There is Ahmad b. Abi’s ‘Talifakhbar al qurun min Umara ‘ balad Ilurin’ (1912) with its critique by H. O. Danmole (1984). There is H.B. Hermon-Hodge’s ‘Gazetteer of Ilorin Province’ (1929). There is H. O. Danmole and Toyin Falola’s ‘The Documentation of Ilorin by Samuel Ojo Bada’. There is J.A. Atanda’s ‘The Fulani Jihad and the Collapse of the Old Oyo Empire’. There is also Stefan Reichmuth’s ‘Imam Umaru’s Account of the Origins of the Ilorin Emirate’ (1993); and then, Ann O’Hear’s ‘Elite Slaves in Ilorin in the 19th and 20th Centuries’ (2006). There are many more from local historians here and there.

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Ilorin has the enviable luck of being a melting pot for all races, “tribes and tongues”. You find there people who would proudly say their ancestors were Fulani or Hausa or Kanuri or Dendi, Nupe, Baruba, Wangara, even Arabs. Yet, they are all ‘Yoruba’ today and they are proud to speak the language. You want to ask why the conqueror speaks the language of the conquered? It is because the Yoruba gene is very resistant to assimilation; the conquerors only got the throne, the soul refused to stay in their pouch. The Yoruba culture does what dams do to their surrounding environment. Their backwaters fester and consume their catchment areas. It is arguably the only African culture that survived slavery outside Africa. Go to Brazil, to Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, about 200 years after slavery, descendants of Yoruba slaves there proudly raise the banner of their fathers. That is the case with the essential Yoruba-Ilorin.

While politicians in Kano are busy making identity nooses to hang their opponents, their street is dead drunk with tears of hunger and want. But the people rarely matter in matters like this. They won’t ever revolt; re-vote of their tormentors is what they will do. So, I have no dog in the bitter contest for the throne of Kano. The same should be our reaction to the machete attacks on the traditional powers and privileges of the Sultan of Sokoto by the state governor. At best, I watch events in those places the way I watched Sunday’s epic final of Euro 2024 football match between England and Spain. The Game of Thrones in the Fulani north, from Kano to Sokoto, is therefore, to me, entertainment. We run commentaries such as this only because, as the Yoruba say, it is always good to show the goopy snail that its eyes are caked with mucus.

Krishna Udayasankar, Singapore-based Indian writer and author of ‘3’ – a novel on the founding of Singapore, believes that “no empire lasts forever, no dynasty continues unbroken” How is the Kano kingship crisis going to end for the ruling class in northern Nigeria? When you combine what is happening in that city with the simmering volcano in Sokoto, would you be wrong if you say the signs portend sundown for the elaborate empire built by Dan Fodio in the first decade of the 19th century? No intervention can save that empire from itself. Maybe that elaborate realm has to die for Nigeria to live and thrive.

While the battle for thrones rages on, the Dan Fodio clan got a whole ministry from Tinubu last week. The president called it the Ministry of Livestock Development. I heard their elites’ happy footfalls. Who told the Fulbe that their problem would be over with a special ministry for their cows? Something tells me they know too that they are only interested in the billions that will be pumped into that loss centre. My dictionary says the opposite of livestock is deadstock. Something tells me that is the fruit from that luxuriant tree unless they change their ways. But they won’t change. For them, it is already past midnight.

[ICYMI] Ilorin and Dan Fodio’s deadstock

Opinion

Osun election: Àtàọ́ja should stop running joro-jara-joro

Published

7 days ago

July 24, 2026

Trends Admin

The Àtàọ́ja of Osogboland, Oba Jimoh Olanipekun

Osun election: Àtàọ́ja should stop running joro-jara-joro

Tunde Odesola

(Published in the PUNCH, on Friday, July 24, 2026)

It’s midmorning in Àtàọ́ja’s palace. The sun beamed a friendly smile, quite different from the furious furnace it was preparing for the afternoon. As gently as the breeze caressed the trees in the palace, two pigeons landed on silent feet in the courtyard. They were on a joint mission. To scavenge. Looking right and left, up and down, beaks at work, wings at the ready, the bouncy birds pecked food in the palace soil. For the male and female pigeons, danger lies not in flying; it lies in walking. Sycophancy walks naked on the palace grounds.

Even the king’s kààakí was caught unawares. It couldn’t herald what was about to happen because everything occurred at a dizzying speed. The Àtàọ́ja, Oba Jimoh Olanipekun, ran out from the inner recess of the palace, his agbada òfì billowing in the Osogbo wind; kira-kita, kira-kita, the king bolted like Usain Bolt. Where is the king running to?

In his breakneck flight, Àtàọ́ja Osogbo forgot to wear his neck beads! I-m-a-g-i-n-e! But he luckily remembered to wear his cap. I suspect it was ancestral forefathers known as ‘àwọn alálẹ̀’ who reminded him to wear his shoes. Otherwise, the king might have appeared out of sorts at the state government event he was fleeing to.

Thankfully, when Àtàọ́ja Olanipekun reached his destination, he still had some breath in his lungs. He sat down, resplendent in white and blue agbada, clenched the microphone and confessed in Yoruba, “Ẹ̀ ri pé ń ò kólẹ̀kẹ̀ ọ́rùn? Mo sáré dé hin ni. Tí a bà á wá, wọ́n á ní, ‘Háà, kò mọ̀ le bọ́ta mọ́!’ Gbogbo ohun tí wọ́n ń sọ là ń gbọ́.”

I’ll translate the king’s speech in English: “Can’t you see that I am not wearing my royal beads? (It is because) I ran to this event. Because if I did not come, they would say, ‘Ha! He cannot come out again!’ We hear everything that they (opposition) are saying. I will not stop eulogising Adeleke Jackson Nurudeen for his excellent performance in Osun State.”

Unfortunately, Olanipekun thinks that by singing himself hoarse on the praise of ebullient Governor Ademola Adeleke, he is giving the re-election bid of the Asiwaju of Ede a boost. No, he is not. If he was, the apex socio-cultural association of Osogbo sons and daughters, the Osogbo Progressive Union, would not openly criticise him for publicly canvassing support for Adeleke and attacking the opposition on many occasions.

The penis of the bird does not dangle outside; it is tucked inside the bird, says a Yoruba proverb. This proverb preaches decorum. If the king had been decorous like other Osun kings, who, though, have their favourites among the governorship candidates, but who have kept their support within the ambit of decency, the OPU wouldn’t have embarrassed him with a public disclaimer.

The Timi of Ede, Oba Muniru Adesola Lawal, had been an exemplar in his support for Adeleke, who hails from his domain. The Timi had been regal: zero aggression, zero hate words, zero campaign against other parties. Oba Timi has shown emotional intelligence while fully supporting Adeleke, his son. That is how to be a father to all subjects. Of course, if Timi was blindfolded at the polling booth on election day, his royal thumb would still locate Accord Party on the ballot, whereas some carricachop from another land is claiming to know Ọ̀ṣọ́ more than Ọ̀ṣọ́’s mother.

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It’s undignifying for the elderly to run helter-skelter, says a Yoruba proverb distilled in these words, “Gbàmí, gbàmí ò ye àgbà.” Another proverb that cautions against kùrùkẹrẹ movement says, “Ẹní wọ bàtà ẹsẹ̀ òsì méjì, ó níbití ó ń lọ.”

The importance of royal objects such as crown, beads and staff is interrogated in the seminal work, “Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought,” written by Henry J. Drewal et al, and published by The Centre for African Art, New York, in 1989. Similarly, the royal totems – crown, beads and staff – are also a subject of scholarship in Rowland Abiodun’s “Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art,” published by Cambridge University Press in 2014.

Drewal and Abiodun aver that in Yoruba thought, the crown, beads and staff are sacred totems that signify divine authority, spiritual protection, leadership, ancestral continuity, and the king’s covenant with the people and the gods.

In both books, the crown is regarded as a sacred emblem containing the spiritual essence that connects the present with the past. Royal beads signify dignity and prestige, abundance and prosperity, and spiritual energy. The staff is an instrument of authority, justice, fairness, and protection.

Joro-jara-joro is an onomatopoeic word that means helter-skelter. Onomatopoeic words are words that sound like their meanings. Examples: buzz, hiss, slap, sleep, twinkle, jab, splash, tear, bang, etc. Joro-jara-joro was amplified by Afrobeat creator Fela Anikulapo-Kuti in his 1976 song, “Zombie”, which mocks Nigerian soldiers’ blind allegiance to dictatorship.

In “Zombie”, Fela caricatures Nigerian soldiers as unthinking brutes whose sole skill is to chaotically rove joro-jara-joro against the masses, like zombies on the mission to “go and kill, go and quench, go and die”. Fela sings, “Zombie way na one way; joro-jara-joro/No break no jam, no sense; Na joro-jara-joro….”

There would have been no reason to write this article because I had made my intention clear enough in an earlier article entitled, “Governor Adeleke and a tale of three Àtàọ́jas,” published in The PUNCH on Friday, July 17, 2026. My preoccupation in the article was to call the attention of the monarch to some of his unkingly utterances. My intention wasn’t political. But an insinuation, especially from some irritating ‘e-rats’ and ‘data boys’, who attempted to paint my intervention in political colours, made this sequel inevitable.

In line with their zombie mentality, a particular ‘e-rat’ along with his fellow ‘data boys’ accused me of meddlesomeness and maintained that it lies within the rights of the Àtàọ́ja to express support for any candidate of his choice.

Clearly, the accusation of meddlesomeness was borne out of dripping ignorance. If not, an enlightened mind would see that the actions of the Àtàọ́ja diminish his traditional stool that represents the Yoruba worldview of unity, morality, justice, fairness and equity. The allegation that the Àtàọ́ja had the right to support any candidate of his choice is valid to the extent that such a right must not violate the principles of fair play, rule of law and decency.

By openly calling the opposition names in a viral video, did the Àtàọ́ja adhere to the principles of fairness and tolerance? By his vitriolic speeches, was he not stoking the embers of strife? If I could be provided with the evidence of one Osun traditional ruler who had been as politically intolerant as the Àtàọ́ja, against the ruling party, I shall tender an apology in my next article.

In one of the bad-taste videos, the Àtàọ́ja arrogantly disclosed how he rejected wise counsel by a concerned citizen, who told him the danger in his public support for Adeleke over other candidates. His words, “One of my people asked me why I am so audacious to the extent of overly supporting one candidate (Adeleke) over others; what if he doesn’t win?”

The king answered the worried citizen. Àtàọ́ja opened his mouth and played god, declaring with finality: “He will win.” Olanipekun’s divisive posture is most unbecoming of an ọba, whose palace should be an abode to seek conflict resolution by his subjects, including politicians. Àtàọ́ja should not be the epicentre of conflict.

In the recent past, I have ventilated my views on the actions of the Ooni of Ife, Oba of Lagos, Apetu of Ipetumodu, Alapomu of Apomu, Oluwo of Iwo, and Emir of Ilorin, among other traditional rulers. I strongly believe that it behoves the citizen to hold traditional rulers to the highest standards because the traditional institution embodies the ethos and pathos of a race.

For ‘e-rats’ and ‘data boys’, whose stock-in-trade is abuse, there is a lesson in the conduct of a member of the House of Representatives, Bamidele Salam. Salam is my friend of over 20 years. Though we have had moments of sharp disagreement, emotions never boiled over to name-calling.

One day, BS, that’s Salam’s nickname, saw my Facebook post on Governor Adeleke. In the post, I advised the governor against excessive dancing and to shear off some personalities who were following him about like houseflies following the wound on a dog’s ears. In the Facebook post about three years ago, I cautioned that the image of the governor dancing to the faintest of drumbeats amid a retinue of hangers-on was not good.

As soon as BS saw the post, he reached out to me on the phone and said, “Ọ̀rẹ́, ọ̀rọ̀ ò rí bẹ́yẹn o. Your post does not reflect the great work Adeleke is doing in Osun…” I smiled from the other end of the phone because Bamidele was pushing Adeleke’s narrative while ignoring the kernel of my Facebook post. When I insisted on the need for the governor to do better in regard to dancing, Bamidele said every man was a work in progress, including me. Bamidele’s example is how to engage intelligently; a lesson government and opposition ‘e-rats’ and ‘data boys’ should learn.

The demarcation between a ruling party and an opposition party is nebulous. Practically speaking, ideological philosophies among Nigeria’s political parties are nonexistent. This is why Àtàọ́ja should be careful in his untraditional support for Adeleke. The Adeleke he sees in the Accord Party today could be in the All Progressives Congress tomorrow. Olanipekun should not burn the bridge of friendship today because he might need to use the bridge tomorrow.

This is the lesson Àtàọ́ja Olanipekun should see in his recent visit to President Bola Tinubu in Abuja. When politicians do their thing, a respectable ọba should maintain a dignified distance. He should not be in the fray.

Are you shocked that Kabiyesi Olanipekun was in Aso Rock a few days ago? Yes, he was. As a guest of President Bola Tinubu. This is the story of how the monarch used one stone to kill two birds. Àtàọ́ja’s daughter was graduating from the Law School in Abuja. An influential Osun State indigene, worried by the king’s intolerant posture against the Osun All Progressives Congress, had arranged for the king to meet with the President. It took some time for the king to meet the President.

During their meeting, the President expressed worry over Àtàọ́ja’s political remarks against the APC in Osun, urging him to allow for a level playing field. I gathered that Àtàọ́ja told the President that he was sold on the Adeleke ticket. Personally, I do not fault Àtàọ́ja’s position – supporting a candidate of his choice; it’s his brickbat approach that is reproachable.

If Tinubu could open his doors to Olanipekun and sit down to dialogue with him, who says there cannot be a dialogue between Tinubu and Adeleke? And if a dialogue occurs between the two and an agreement is struck, would the king not feel uneasy relating with his ‘enemies’ in the APC? The king should always spare a thought for the flip side of things. That is what the wise do.

“Àgbàlagbà kìí ṣe lángbá, lángbá,” is a cautionary proverb for reckless elders. The pit of animosity must not be dug too deep because the digger might fall into it. A word is enough for the wise.

Kabiyesi Àtàọ́ja, kara o le o.

///

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

Osun election: Àtàọ́ja should stop running joro-jara-joro

Opinion

UI, UCH and the Question of Inclusive Leadership

Published

1 week ago

July 23, 2026

Trends Admin

Saudi-based Nigerian Islamic scholar, Mallam Ibrahim Agunbiade

UI, UCH and the Question of Inclusive Leadership

By Mallam Ibrahim Agunbiade
agunbiadeib@gmail.com

July 23, 2026

The appointment of Professor Peter Olamakinde Olapegba as the 14th substantive Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan (UI), effective November 1, 2026, is deserving of congratulations. I wish him a successful tenure as he takes on the responsibility of leading Nigeria’s premier university.

The reported competitive process through which he emerged—following the assessment of eight candidates and the shortlisting of five for the final stage—is commendable, provided it was conducted transparently and strictly on merit.

However, this development also raises an important question that deserves honest and constructive discussion: When will a qualified Muslim have the opportunity to emerge as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan?

This question is not directed at Professor Olapegba or his Christian faith. If he emerged as the best candidate through a fair and transparent process, then he deserves the support of all Nigerians. My concern is whether qualified Nigerians of different faiths enjoy equal opportunities to compete for the highest leadership positions in our national institutions.

The same question applies to the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, where a change in leadership is expected in the coming months. It is therefore time for stakeholders to begin constructive conversations about the appointment of the next Chief Medical Director (CMD).

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I believe that qualified and competent Muslim professionals should be encouraged and given a fair opportunity to compete for the position. If the best candidate happens to be a Muslim, there should be no hesitation in appointing that individual. Equally, if the best candidate is a Christian or belongs to another faith, the same principle of merit should apply.

This is not a call for religious quotas or preferential treatment. Rather, it is a call for a level playing field.

A Muslim should not be appointed simply because he is a Muslim, just as a Christian should not be appointed simply because he is a Christian. Leadership must be based on competence, integrity, experience, and the capacity to deliver.

However, merit can only be meaningful when every qualified candidate has a genuine opportunity to compete without bias or discrimination.

The University of Ibadan and UCH are national institutions that belong to all Nigerians. Their leadership should therefore reflect the principles of fairness, inclusiveness, equal opportunity, and merit.

As Professor Olapegba prepares to assume office, I congratulate him once again and wish him a successful tenure. At the same time, I believe this is the right moment to ask whether our leadership selection processes truly provide equal opportunities for all qualified Nigerians.

As the succession process at UCH approaches, I urge stakeholders to ensure that no qualified candidate is excluded—consciously or unconsciously—because of religious identity. Let the process be transparent, competitive, and firmly anchored on merit.

I am not asking for a Muslim to be appointed simply because he is a Muslim. I am asking that no qualified Muslim should be denied the opportunity to lead simply because of his religious identity.

The same principle should apply to every Nigerian, regardless of faith or background.

Let merit prevail. Let competence prevail. Let fairness prevail.

UI, UCH and the Question of Inclusive Leadership

Opinion

Case for replicating the Oyo kidnap-rescue template nationwide, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

2 weeks ago

July 18, 2026

Trends Admin

Farooq Kperogi

Case for replicating the Oyo kidnap-rescue template nationwide, By Farooq Kperogi

Because human beings are prone to perceive nonexistent patterns, connections and intentional design even in random or unrelated events, a cognitive tendency called apophenia, and because Nigerians have an enduring and justified mistrust of government, I have seen many people question whether the abduction and rescue of pupils and teachers from three schools in the Yawota and Ahoro-Esinele communities of Oriire Local Government Area in Oyo State really happened.

The mistrust is legitimate, but I find the apophenic leap from mistrust to the conclusion that the entire episode was staged a little unsettling.

I am convinced by the available evidence that pupils and teachers were indeed abducted by despicably homicidal terrorists. I have seen no credible evidence that any government paid criminals to stage the spectacle of an abduction and rescue.

Contemporary reporting documented the May 15 attacks, identified abducted children and teachers, interviewed their relatives and recorded the killing of two teachers before the surviving captives regained their freedom.

Terrorist groups have been abducting and killing innocent students for more than a decade and have never needed prompting from politicians to do so. Attributing their heinous crimes to sponsorship by rival factions within the Nigerian political class unintentionally exculpates these scoundrels and converts murderers into mere instruments of political intrigue.

That said, there is no complete clarity about how the pupils and teachers regained their freedom. Government critics have alleged, without evidence, that a huge ransom was paid as a precondition for their release. As I will show later, I doubt this.

But the government’s version of how the pupils and teachers were rescued is not entirely coherent, either.

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The Presidency initially described the rescue as the outcome of a successful joint military, police and intelligence operation. It said eight suspected kidnappers were arrested, other members of the group were killed and neither ransom nor a prisoner exchange was involved. The abductors had allegedly demanded the release of a detained terrorist leader, but the government said he remained in custody and was being prosecuted.

The Army’s subsequent account was less dramatic than the Presidency’s early language suggested. It did not say troops stormed the camp and physically extracted the hostages during a firefight. Instead, it said a month-long intelligence operation identified the group’s leaders, informants, logistical networks and hideouts. According to the Army, arrests disrupted the group and exerted pressure that “ultimately led the terrorist group to unconditionally release the pupils and teachers.”

In a July 10 interview with Tinubu-owned TVC News, former DSS operative Seyi Adetayo offered a more specific but as yet uncorroborated explanation of the operational modalities of the rescue. He claimed that government security operatives identified and detained some kidnappers’ mothers, wives, children and other associates, sent recordings of those arrests to the abductors and combined coercive pressure with intelligence operations. He also claimed that the terrorists were warned that harm to their captives would bring harm to their relatives.

Based on the available evidence, the most defensible interpretation of what happened is that this was an unusually collaborative, intelligence-driven and coercively negotiated release. It was probably not a conventional battlefield rescue. Nor does it appear to have been a ransom-propelled release.

This actually fills me with hope. It means the government may have found a potentially effective template for disrupting terrorist networks and rescuing their victims without exposing abductees to the indiscriminate violence of a frontal military assault.

But the part of the template worth replicating is its lawful core: interagency cooperation, careful intelligence gathering, the identification of terrorist networks, the disruption of their supply routes and the arrest of culpable collaborators.

There would be no greater evidence for the truth of the government’s account of the Oriire rescue than the successful replication of its methods in unresolved mass-abduction cases nationwide.

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The February 3-4 terrorist assault on Woro and neighboring Nuku communities in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State not only killed scores of people but also led to a mass abduction. UNICEF reported that around 176 women, including pregnant women, and children were kidnapped from Woro.

More than five months later, the victims have not been released, according to the latest public reports. The terrorists have released videos showing women and small children appealing desperately for intervention. They, too, need the collaborative intelligence-gathering energies that security agencies deployed in Oyo.

On May 15, suspected militants abducted 42 children from Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School and surrounding homes in Askira-Uba Local Government Area of Borno State. Some of the abductees were extremely young. According to the latest available reporting, all 42 remain missing.

There was a separate school attack in Lassa town in the same local government area in Borno on June 29. Gunmen attacked Government Day Secondary School while students were taking examinations. Eight people were rescued, but 36 students and one staff member remain captive. The students comprised 25 girls and 11 boys.

On June 7, in Magamin Diddi village in Maradun Local Government Area of Zamfara State, bandits reportedly invited villagers to what was presented as a peace meeting and then abducted them. The police confirmed that 39 people were taken, although community estimates were as high as 50. The kidnappers reportedly demanded ₦125 million and released some captives to communicate the demand. There has been no authoritative public account of the remaining captives’ release.

Nor should the passage of time cause older victims to disappear from the national conscience. Eighty-nine of the Chibok schoolgirls abducted in 2014 remain officially unaccounted for. Their families have endured more than a decade of promises, occasional discoveries and prolonged uncertainty.

There are many more cases than I have the space to chronicle in this column. Security forces presumably have records of mass abductions, including many that never made the national news. Yet Nigeria has developed a disturbing ritual in which outrage follows an abduction, officials promise decisive action and public attention eventually moves elsewhere while families remain imprisoned in terrifyingly crippling uncertainty.

The true test of the Oyo operation is not the applause it generated after one dramatic success but the number of forgotten captives its methods can bring home. If its intelligence model worked as the government says it did, it should become a national operational doctrine rather than a self-contained public-relations trophy.

Replicating it in Woro, Mussa, Lassa, Magamin Diddi and other communities would simultaneously rescue imperiled citizens, restore public faith in the capacity of the government to perform its primary duty and begin to extirpate a kidnapping economy that has destroyed communal peace and individual peace of mind across Nigeria. Until that happens, Oyo remains an encouraging breakthrough, but not yet a proven national template.