The camp of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has raised questions over conflicting accounts on how 44 pupils and teachers abducted in Oriire, Oyo State, regained their freedom, following a statement by one of the freed teachers.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Atiku’s Media Adviser, Paul Ibe queried the presidency’s description of the incident as a “rescue” after a teacher, Mr. Olatunde Zacchaeus, said on a radio station that they were “released” by the terrorists.
On July 10, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, announced that the 44 Oriire school children and teachers were rescued by security forces after 56 days in captivity.
The presidency said eight kidnappers were arrested and others neutralised during the operation, and that there was “no quid pro quo” in the rescue.
However, Zacchaeus, a teacher who spent 56 days in captivity with 43 other victims, told Info FM that they were released by the abductors.
The video of his remarks was shared by Oyo Matters on Thursday.
In his post, Ibe asked: “Is it that Zacchaeus, as a teacher, does not know the difference between to release and rescue, or is he an ‘agent’ of the opposition, or what?”
He described the teacher’s claim as being “in stark contradiction to what the Tinubu-led APC administration told the nation.”
Ibe also linked the revelation to broader concerns about ransom payments, saying it “brings to the fore the issue of state sponsored psyment of ransom to terrorists and bandits and conspiracy theories that some of the so-called abductions are state-sponsored.”
He backed Governor Seyi Makinde’s call for an independent probe, asking: “Does this revelation now explain why Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State demanded for a United Nations independent investigation of the issue?”
“I agree 100% with Makinde, there’s a compelling need for an independent investigation of an international dimension to establish what truly happened in Oriire, Oyo State, Mussa village in Askari/Uba local government of Borno and in other places where abductions has become the rule and not the exception,” Ibe asserted.
He also asked for an update on “the plan for the rescue or release of the abducted school children in Borno.”
Background
Gunmen attacked three schools in Oriire Local Government Area on May 15, abducting 46 pupils, teachers and a toddler, while two teachers were later killed in captivity.
The victims were freed on July 10 after what security agencies described as an intelligence-led joint operation involving the Army, Police, DSS, and others.
The Oyo State Government described the freedom of the victims as a victory for “principled leadership” and said it resisted pressure to pay ransom.
The Federal Government has since arraigned three men over the abduction.
(The Sun)