Why Security Agencies Can’t Attack Bandits in Oyo Kidnapping Crisis, Buhari Says

Senator Abdulfatai Buhari, who represents Oyo North, warned that if the Nigerian government were to launch an attack on the location where abducted schoolchildren are held, the attackers would kill all 47 pupils.

Gunmen have taken schoolchildren from schools in Ogbomosho and Oriire Local Government Areas of Oyo State.

Buhari said the bandits are using the kidnapped children as human shields inside their hideout.

Speaking on Arise Television’s Prime Time on Thursday night, Buhari stated: “When the Federal government delegation came, we went to see all the families, including the one that was brutally murdered. We were able to console her.”

He added: “We appealed to her and she was begging. Even if we can get her the corpse of the husband, we don’t know if they buried him or threw it away.”

Buhari noted that the forest stretches across seven states—Oyo, Kwara, Niger, Kebbi, Sokoto—and borders Benin and Niger. “In most cases, all these people come into the forest and it’s very thick, no beginning, no end. The sad aspect is that they don’t stay in one place; they will be moving, so tracking them becomes very difficult.”

He explained that if the operation were a conventional war, it would be different because these are people who came from another country and move from one place to another. “In the early part, they took the children to surround themselves and it was raining. So if you decide to attack, they will kill all the 47 children. They used them as human shields.”

“The abductors use these children to surround themselves, basically using them as human shields. It is not a conventional war,” Buhari concluded.