The entire drama that featured the abduction of Mrs. Olaide Busayo Adegoke John-Paul and her 12-year-old twin boys lasted for just three days, between Wednesday and Saturday. Those were tension-soaked days that served mostly to highlight or add to the pressure on a federal government that many had come to see as the very symbol of incompetence.
Abuja, for many, had failed to uphold the fundamental objective justifying the social contract between a state and the people: the assurance of the safety and welfare of the citizens. A day or two earlier, Nigerians had been angered to distraction and made desperate by the terrorists in the Oriire community in Ogbomoso LGA. They had released (for the second time) a painful but cowardly footage in which two of the women captives, with the barrel of a gun pointing in their faces, were made to beg the authorities not to make any attempt to storm the forest to free the 46 hostages being held there.
Stirred by that footage and reports of more abductions in other parts of the country, the Nigeria Union of Teachers and other civil society groups were already issuing threats of civil disobedience. They were bent on protesting against the abduction of pupils, students and their teachers in Ogbomoso. It was the third week and it didn’t look as if the government was doing enough to rescue them. They are now in the fourth week of their abduction and, just when one had concluded that there had not been any new developments since last week, another footage emerged from the forest with the now-familiar face of Mrs. Folawe Alamu.
Neither the Oyo state government nor Abuja had made any breakthrough in their interaction with the terrorists holding her and 45 others, one of them deceased. Many Nigerians thought the authorities simply didn’t feel concerned. At least not as concerned as they have been about the politics of next year’s election. Their case was temporarily upstaged by the Ibadan episode until this latest footage of Mrs. Alamu brought Ogbomoso back to the headlines. That is how terrorists now play games with the emotions of Nigerians.
Mrs. John-Paul’s episode came upon us suddenly. First, it started as mere rumour. There were social media posts of the abandoned vehicle in which she had been driving her children to school. The car doors were flung open and there was, in the background, the picture of another vehicle that was identified as that of their abductors — she and her children. A voice narrating the footage explained that the occupants of the abandoned vehicle had just been kidnapped. Perhaps because the drama was playing out in broad daylight and in the middle of the city, far from any forest, it looked both surreal and unbelievable. It seemed like some traffic-seeking post of a low-class content creator. In different circumstances, say a newspaper report, it would have come across as one of those cheap attempts some Nigerian journalists make to sensationalise events as this was happening against the backdrop of the Ogbomoso attack.
Examples abound. If there was a reported case of, say, road or air rage, suddenly such reports start sprouting in the press for a few days or weeks as if Nigerians — reporters and readers — are just waking up to such incidents. The Ibadan case initially appeared like that. But it was soon confirmed to be true, which worsened the tense situation in the country. People were particularly edgy in Ibadan where schools were being shut. By the following day, which was a Thursday, all schools had shut down for the week (the very thing the terrorists in Ogbomoso wanted to achieve by attacking schools) and there were disruptions to vehicular movements due to street protests. Amid all of this, the police were apparently working in the background to rescue the abductees, who had been revealed to be the sister and nephews of the immediate past minister of power, Adebayo Adelabu. She is a retired staff of the Central Bank where Adelabu rose to the rank of deputy governor.
Nobody knew what the Ibadan kidnappers wanted. They made no demands or contacted the family. As would become clear after they were arrested, they were desperately on the lookout and trying to keep the authorities off their trail. They were still doing this when their hideout, located right inside the city, was stormed last Saturday night and the abductees were dramatically rescued in an operation that left two of the five kidnappers permanently neutralised while one escaped with gunshot injuries. By Monday afternoon, the building (believed to have been owned by one of the kidnappers) in which the abductees had been held was demolished by the state government. The kidnappers knew their victims and acted, it has been revealed, with the support of an insider, a personal assistant of someone in the abductees’ family.
There is no doubt that the police moved fast and did well to neutralise this threat to the security of the homeland. It was too close to home, happening as it did, right in the city. But they didn’t act very professionally by revealing the details of the operation that led to the rescue of the abductees. This is one mistake the security agencies continue to make in their fight against terrorism across the country. They are too eager to disclose the details of their activities, perhaps in a bid for public validation. A professional agency need not do that. It is like handing their work plan to the criminals who are actively listening and watching for such information. This much is clear from what the Ogbomoso terrorists are saying through Mrs. Alamu. It’s getting hot and has become a war of narratives as they have countered the official narrative about the condition they have placed for the release of the people in their custody.
They are not demanding the imposition of shariah in the south-west or the payment of N1 billion ransom, they say. All they are demanding is the release of their comrades in detention. Where are these comrades? In the south-west or Sambisa? What business does the government have trading words with murderers? All the south-west is saying is that there is no room for terrorism of any kind in the region. Other regions can do as they please and make terrorists their family members. It’s their choice. But they must never nurse the idea of exporting terrorism into Yorubaland. Which is why the likes of Ahmad Gumi, forever siding with terrorists, should be put in his place. Prof. Ishaq Akintola of the Muslim Rights Concern, and others like him, should know their limits too. They must stop their self-serving game of fostering disunity and weaponising religion among Nigerians.
