Oyo Principal Recounts 56-Day Forest Ordeal After Abduction

Crime, Investigations, National Security, Oyo State

Oyo Principal Recounts 56-Day Forest Ordeal After Abduction

IBADAN, Oyo State — The principal of Community High School, Ahoro-Esiele in Oyo State, Mrs Alamu Folawe, has given one of the most harrowing first-hand accounts yet of the 56 days she and other abducted teachers and pupils spent in captivity, describing a tightly controlled forest network, repeated forced movements and brutal intimidation by their…

Atlantic Post

July 14, 2026

3–5 minutes

Banditry, Oriire LGA, Oyo abduction, School Kidnapping, School Security, Seyi Makinde

IBADAN, Oyo State — The principal of Community High School, Ahoro-Esiele in Oyo State, Mrs Alamu Folawe, has given one of the most harrowing first-hand accounts yet of the 56 days she and other abducted teachers and pupils spent in captivity, describing a tightly controlled forest network, repeated forced movements and brutal intimidation by their abductors.

She said the kidnappers appeared to know “every route” in the bush and forced the victims to trek for hours through what she called “chartered paths”, turning the forest into a rotating prison.

The account came on Monday during the official handover of the rescued victims to Governor Seyi Makinde.

Reuters reported that at least 39 schoolchildren and six teachers were rescued, while AP said one teacher had been killed shortly after the May 15 abduction and that eight suspected militants were arrested during the operation.

Folawe said the captors tied the victims’ mouths with cloth, beat them and treated the men more harshly, blindfolding, handcuffing and chaining them. In her telling, the violence was not random; it was part of an effort to break morale and force compliance.

She said the kidnappers repeatedly used fear to weaken the captives, telling them that government had lost interest in their case.

Those details align with the wider picture reported by Reuters and AP, which both noted that the school abductions were part of Nigeria’s long-running security crisis and that the rescue ended a standoff that lasted more than 50 days.

One of the most disturbing parts of her account was the repeated relocation through the forest. Folawe said the abductors initially gave the frightened children biscuits, apparently to calm them, but that stopped after the first week.

From that point, she said, the group was moved from one hiding place to another whenever the location was discovered. “That was a major problem we had,” she recalled, explaining that the movement often began around 7pm or 8pm and could continue for hours.

She said the trekked distances left many of the victims bruised, exhausted and injured.

She also described how the abductors transported them deeper into the forest soon after the attack, including the use of her own car to move some of the victims to a point where they later met other abductees and a primary school teacher.

From there, she said, the group was forced to continue on foot, often at night and through unfamiliar terrain, while the kidnappers moved with confidence.

Her remark that the gunmen “knew their way” captures the central security worry in the case: these were not opportunistic kidnappers stumbling blindly through the bush, but men who appeared to understand the terrain and its escape routes.

The principal’s testimony also exposes the emotional cost of repeated kidnapping in Nigeria’s school system. Folawe, who said she has worked as a teacher for 28 years, admitted the ordeal may affect whether she continues serving in remote communities.

She said she still has four years left before retirement, but the trauma has made her uncertain about returning to a rural posting with long travel distances and little confidence in safety.

Her words point to a quiet but serious policy problem: even when victims are rescued, the fear can remain, and that fear can weaken already fragile public services in hard-to-reach areas.

The case has also sharpened scrutiny of how kidnapping gangs operate in southern Nigeria.

AP noted that the Oyo abductions represented an escalation because mass school kidnappings have traditionally been concentrated in the north.

Reuters similarly reported that the victims were taken on May 15 when armed men targeted multiple schools in Oriire district.

Vanguard reported that the attack also claimed the lives of assistant headmaster Joel Adesiyan and a commercial motorcyclist, prompting school closures in four local government areas as security agencies intensified rescue efforts.

There is, however, one detail that deserves careful handling. Folawe said the abductors killed two colleagues to pressure the government, while AP and Reuters reported that one teacher was killed shortly after the abduction and that another victim died during the attack itself.

Considered collectively, the accounts suggest a grim pattern of violence in which the kidnappers used both immediate killings and sustained psychological pressure to strengthen their leverage.

That discrepancy does not weaken the broader story; it reinforces the need for transparent official briefings, especially in a case that has left children, teachers and families carrying visible and invisible scars.