Sceptics and truth-twisters have been at work since the victims of the Oriire saga returned from a 56-day captivity on Friday, 10 July 2026. Marginal followers of the developments which culminated in the eventual release of the abductees who were severed from their nuclear families, aboriginal communities and the larger Nigerian family have engaged in needless rhetoric. It has been about whether the 44 who made it back after the traumatic ordeal were actually rescued by the Nigerian security forces, or “released” by their captors. There is a Yoruba adage which says omo’de o mo oogun, oun’pe l’efo, which translates as “the child who doesn’t know the defining features of potent herbs, labels it regular vegetable”. Yet another Yoruba proverb says. eni ti Sango ba toju e wole ko ni na won bu Oba Koso, meaning, “he who witnesses firsthand the terrifying power of a force, deity or authority will not join non-initiates in disrespecting or making light of it”.
Very sadly, Nigeria’s educational institutions have become soft targets as part of the insecurity ogre which has festered particularly in the past decade and a half. From Chibok in Borno State, to Dapchi in Yobe; from Maga in Kebbi State, to Papiri in Niger through the years, the nation’s psychological and emotional temperatures have been serially aggravated with each mass seizure of vulnerable, innocent teenagers and toddlers from the premises of the learning and boarding environments. It was the same consternation that greeted the abduction of 46 staff and students from various schools in the Ahoro-Esinle and Yawota communities in the Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State, on Friday, 15 May 2026, even as they set their sights on a weekend of rejuvenation after a busy week.
Despite public apprehension about the possibility of the return of the abductees anytime soon, against the backdrop of recent experiences in the management of similar incidents, government and non-governmental bodies at various levels seemed poised to make the Oriire impasse a different scenario. Multi-departmental teams of professionals from the nation’s security complex, including the Nigerian Army, Airforce, Navy, Police, Department of State Services, the Nigeria Civil Defence and Security Corps, the Office of the National Security Adviser, and so on, were activated, under the leadership of the General Officer Commanding the 2nd Division of the Nigerian Army, Ibadan, Major General Chinedu Nnebeife. They were complemented by the state chapter of the Western Nigeria Security Network (popularly known as Amotekun) local vigilantes and hunters.
Yoruba self-determination activist, Sunday Igboho, equally deployed his security outfit, iru ekun (lion’s tail), to join in combing the 2800 square kilometre radius of the Oyo National Park, whose luminous size effortlessly swallows the 2,500 square kilometre span of coastal Lagos State. Periodic reassurances to a despairing populace came from Oluseyi Makinde, Governor of Oyo State, who has barely savoured the comfort of his mattress and duvet since the ordeal began, easily the most testy challenge of his political career. Questions were raised about the whereabouts of the multibillion-Naira security drones procured by his administration, which would have come in handy during that period of grave anxiety. Such was the national and international concern and attention, which the Ori-Ire epic generated.
Doubters and sniggerers would do well to interrogate the contributions of Abdulfatai Buhari, Senator representing Oyo North District and one unsung patriot who stayed true and through the Oriire conundrum with his people. They would better understand that the synergised 56-day operation, which culminated in the safe return of the Oriire 44, was in no way a tea party. But for the imperative of regular attendance and participation at plenary sittings in the National Assembly, Buhari was almost always within the precincts of Ogbomoso and Oriire, the theatre of the abduction and rescue operations. I have noted in an earlier treatise that the Federal Government delegation, which visited the distressed communities in the early weeks of the incident, met with Buhari on the ground, identifying the affected families and comforting them in their lowest moments.
He was no newcomer to the people. They have been his constituents for the better part of the last two decades, beginning from the years he spoke for them in the House of Representatives between 2003 and 2007. Within a month of the incident, Buhari was back in Oriire to reassure his constituents that their pains were continually shared by the government and that their cherished ones would return safe and sound. Specifically, Buhari spent quality time with Lateef Oyewole Alamu, Professor of Forest Resources Management at the Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso, whose wife, Rachael Folake Alamu, Principal of the Community High School, Ahoro-Esinle, was one of those abducted. It was an instructively down-to-earth visit, the type expected of genuine representatives of the people, many of whom disappear into the comfort and opulence of their offices, abandoning their constituents once they are voted into positions.
From his desk in Abuja and his assignments at various destinations across the country, Buhari kept in touch, on an hourly basis, with his people at home, Makinde, and on-field commanders on the rescue mission, filtering progress reports. Nothing better underscores Buhari’s rootedness in Ogbomoso and its environs where the kidnapping took place than the fact that the same day, Friday, 10 July 2026, when the captives were released, he was concluding a three-day training and empowerment programme for 150 of his people in Ogbomoso! In collaboration with the National Board for Technology Incubation, Buhari initiated a series of skills reengineering programmes for women and youths, beginning in the Saki sub-zone the week before and continuing in the Iseyin area the following week. He went beyond entrusting the programme solely to consultants, opting to fully participate, in-person, even if it meant shuttling hither and thither.
Arise News ace news anchor, Charles Aniagolu, most appropriately described Buhari as ‘one of the strongest and most consistent voices throughout the crisis’ when he spoke with him after the national ordeal. Buhari, who witnessed the regular movements of troops of various hues past Ogbomoso, his hometown, while the rescue mission lasted, applauded the professionalism and commitment of the nation’s security forces, which re-echoed the yeomanry of Nigerian troops during the Liberian and Sierra Leonean upheavals of the 1990s and early 2000s. He spoke of about the discreet role of intelligence gathering, and the wholesale containment, by the military, of the major accesses and exits into the voluptuous Oyo National Park where the captives were held for nearly two months.
According to him, all the exits through Igboho, Igbeti, Sepeteri, and Esinele, which abut the park, were effectively cordoned off. There was thus no escape route for the criminals. Buhari’s words are corroborated by Mohammed Ngoshe, a retired Assistant Director-General of the Department of State Services, who said in an interview on Channels Television that the terrorists released their victims after being surrounded by security forces who mounted severe pressure on them. That was a major part of the strategy which yielded eventual success on Friday, 10 July 2026.
Buhari, who received guests in his Ogbomoso home after the Jummat service of Friday, 10 July 2026, including Alamu, noted that the tweet from presidential media adviser, Bayo Onanuga, at about 5 pm of the same day conveying the news of the liberation of the Oriire abductees was one of the happiest days in his whole life. He joined in celebrating the development and drove the 109-kilometre, two-hour distance to Ibadan, the state capital, through nightfall, where the freed captives were admitted into the military hospital for assessment and immediate stabilisation. He joined Makinde in settling in their distressed and famished compatriots, over who they had jointly agonised through several weeks. Buhari, who left the hospital at about 2 am, was back again at 11 am to ascertain the convalescence of his people, grateful that many were stable enough to have their first real meals after weeks of incarceration and malnourishment.
Nnebeife, who also serves as the Force Commander, Operation Fasan Yama Sector 3, an internal security operation of the Nigerian Army, spoke about the peculiar difficulties posed by the vegetation in the rainforest of the Oyo National Park. Swathes and stretches of the landmass are virtually impenetrable by sunlight, nay by aircraft and drones, which made target identification difficult, and added a layer of complexity to the rescue plan. This called for utmost restraint and regular review of strategy to ensure that no abductee’s life was lost in the event of a firefight. With the identification and arrest of close family members of the bandits in a cross-country raid by security operatives across several states in the North, and the relaying of these realities to them, they were compelled to be as civil as possible with those they were holding.
While the kidnappers eliminated two teachers — Michael Olugbade Oyedokun and John Olaleye — as part of their initial efforts to force government into a negotiation, the security services equally lost personnel, including the 28-year-old Felix Ademe Isaac, an Army Lieutenant. Police Sergeant John Abena Jerome and Army Private Silas Musa also paid the supreme price, even as Lance Corporal Adamu Hussein is recuperating from injuries sustained during the operation. A number of the marauders were neutralised and eight of them arrested by Nigerian security services. For the further enlightenment of scoffers, therefore, the coordinated, multi-service operation was in no way an outdoor camp by the “Boy Scout movement”.
The quantum empathy he demonstrated, the sincerity of his identification with his people when they despaired most, when their morale was at its nadir, recommends Buhari’s example to his colleagues, serving and prospective, and indeed to everyone paid to serve our country by we taxpayers. Overindulged on our commonwealth, many in his position would have sought momentary escape to the posh, plush comfort of their foreign addresses, while the heart-wrenching Oriire saga lasted, distilling updates from their home-based aides. At best, such people would have stayed glued to the relative insulation of the nation’s capital, in the false name of “doing the job for which they were elected”. Buhari demonstrated practical leadership when it mattered most.
Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja
