A Call for Action in South-West Nigeria

For the South-West, the long-feared spillover of Nigeria’s school-abduction crisis has now become a grim reality. On Friday, armed men who have terrorised other parts of the country struck brazenly in Oyo State, attacking three schools in Yawota and Esiele, Oriire Local Government Area. The assault left two people dead and saw pupils and teachers abducted.

This is no longer just about Oyo State. It is about a region that is fast becoming exposed, as the six South-West governors continue to fall short of building a coordinated and decisive security shield over their domain.

In the immediate term, Governors Abiodun Oyebanji (Ekiti), Babajide Sanwo-Olu (Lagos), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), Lucky Aiyedatiwa (Ondo), Ademola Adeleke (Osun) and Seyi Makinde (Oyo) must urgently move beyond rhetoric and assemble clear, time-bound operational strategies to confront groups suspected to include Islamist elements operating within and around the region.

Therefore, the incident is a clarion call on South-West governors to convene an urgent regional security meeting to discuss immediate, short-term measures, particularly the possibility of setting up a regional security office.

They should appoint a regional security coordinator in consultation with the Federal Government, while also engaging security agencies and the O’odua Peoples’ Congress where necessary.

This is not the time for press releases or committee meetings that yield nothing. Concrete action must follow.

The details of Friday’s attack are chilling. In broad daylight, shortly after morning assembly, gunmen launched a coordinated raid on Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota; Community Grammar School, Esiele; and L.A. Primary School.

It is the most brazen assault on schools in the South-West in living memory, and its psychological and security impact will linger long after the guns have fallen silent.

As usual, the attackers fired indiscriminately, sending residents fleeing in panic. In the chaos, the assistant headmaster of L.A. Primary School, Joel Adesiyan, and a commercial motorcyclist were killed.

The attackers also abducted pupils and teachers, disappearing with them into uncertainty.

By Saturday, the number of victims remained unclear. The Oyo State Government responded by shutting schools in the affected communities.

But without sustained and layered security reinforcement, such closures risk becoming a recurring ritual, one that merely concedes territory to violent actors rather than reclaiming it.

The attackers clearly exploited a security vacuum. Residents say there is no police station or division in the area. That absence created an open corridor for violence.

Even more troubling, police reportedly arrived about two hours after the assault, by which time the attackers had melted into forests bordering the Oyo National Park.

This outcome is hardly surprising. Nigeria operates a strained, centralised policing system, where manpower is overstretched, and a significant portion of officers are diverted to illegal VIP protection duties rather than community security.

This moment is a watershed. The South-West, once considered the safest part of a violence-ridden country, is now directly in the crosshairs.

Yet warning signs have been accumulating.

In January, suspected bandits operating from surrounding forests attacked the Oyo National Park in Oloka, Oriire LGA, killing five rangers.

Despite the severity of that incident, state attention remained largely fixed on political cycles and electoral calculations, while security vulnerabilities widened.

A month later, attackers struck Nuku and Woro communities in Kaiama LGA of Kwara State.

The massacre, linked to Boko Haram and Lakurawa elements, left about 170 people dead, with others abducted, according to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Kwara shares borders with Osun, Oyo and Ekiti states, placing the South-West within direct reach of expanding terror networks.

Ondo and Ogun have also felt the ripple effects. On April 28, armed intruders attacked Eda Oniyo in Ekiti State, storming a Christ Apostolic Church parish, killing the pastor and abducting worshippers.

Across all these incidents, a troubling pattern emerges: terrorists expanding quietly, embedding themselves in forested corridors while authorities respond after the fact. That must change if the region is not to be gradually consumed by an expanding theatre of violence.

The economic toll of terrorism underscores the urgency. The UNDP estimates Nigeria lost about $97 billion to violent conflict over a decade. The African Development Bank puts annual losses at around 2.4 per cent of GDP. With over two million people displaced, the broader economic burden is estimated at $75 billion.

Vice-President Kashim Shettima, formerly Governor of Borno State, has also noted that terrorism has cost Nigeria over 100,000 lives.

These figures represent a country steadily bleeding from avoidable failures of security governance.

A major structural weakness remains the absence of effective policing in rural communities. This vacuum allows armed groups to entrench themselves, operate freely and launch attacks with little resistance.

Against this backdrop, South-West governors can no longer hide behind the limitations of the federal policing structure as an excuse for inaction or inertia.

They have a precedent to draw from. Following a wave of insecurity that culminated in the killing of Funke Olakunrin, daughter of Pa Reuben Fasoranti, in July 2019, South-West governors came together to establish the Amotekun Corps in early 2020.

Despite initial resistance from the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the regional security initiative was eventually established through determined political coordination, notably championed by then-Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu.

That same spirit of urgency and unity is now required again. Several of the current governors, notably Sanwo-Olu, Makinde and Dapo Abiodun, were part of that earlier consensus-building effort.

The priority now must not be reaction after each attack, but prevention before the next one.

The region must shift from passive response to proactive containment. This requires deep collaboration between state governments, the Federal Government and credible local security networks, including groups such as the OPC. Intelligence gathering, forest surveillance and technology-driven monitoring must be scaled up and sustained.

Reports of hostility or neglect toward Amotekun personnel in some states are particularly troubling. At a time of escalating violence, weakening the corps is strategically self-defeating. Instead, it should be strengthened, properly funded, expanded and equipped with modern tools.

As The PUNCH noted after the Kwara attacks in February, decisive leadership from the centre is also essential. President Bola Tinubu must take a direct interest in securing the South-West forests and ensuring coordinated military action against entrenched armed groups.

Nigeria is already staring into a deepening security abyss. It ranks among the most terrorised countries globally, according to the Global Terrorism Index.

Since 2009, the trajectory of Islamist insurgency has been clear and persistent. Boko Haram, driven by extremist ideology, has pursued a violent campaign that has devastated communities, particularly in the North-East.

The Chibok abduction of 276 schoolgirls in 2014, followed by the Dapchi kidnapping of 110 girls in 2018, remain searing reminders of how far the crisis has gone. In total, between 1,500 and 1,680 students have been abducted since 2014.

The South-West must not become the next prolonged theatre of such tragedy.

Ultimately, the responsibility rests squarely on the region’s political leadership. The governors must close ranks, act decisively and move swiftly to prevent the slow drift into a wider security collapse.