The Price of Ambition: How Election Politics Buried Oyo’s Stolen Children ​-By Abdulazeez Toheeb Olawale

​IF YOU walk through the streets of our major cities today, you will notice a sickening trend. The walls, flyovers, and electric poles are rapidly being papered over with the vibrant, glossy faces of politicians. They smile with polished teeth, promising “consolidated progress” and “renewed hope” ahead of the upcoming party primaries and general elections.
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But if you travel down to Oriire Local Government Area in Oyo State, the view is vastly different. There, the only things hanging in the air are the agonizing wails of parents whose children were dragged into the dense, unforgiving wilderness of the Old Oyo National Park.

​On May 15, 2026, the illusion of safety in the South-West was violently dismantled. Armed bandits launched a coordinated, daylight raid across three schools—Community High School, Ahoro-Esinele; Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota; and L.A. Primary School, Alawusa. They didn’t just steal properties; they stole our future. Forty-six souls, including toddlers as young as two years old, their teachers, and their principal, Mrs. Folawe Alamu, were marched into the bush. To make their message clear, the terrorists brutally beheaded a mathematics teacher, Michael Oyedokun, and murdered an assistant headmaster, Mr. Adesiyan.
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In any sane society, a tragedy of this magnitude would freeze the wheels of political vanity. The nation would halt. The Commander-in-Chief would pitch his tent at the theatre of command until those toddlers were returned to their mothers.
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Instead, what we have received from Abuja and the state capital is a deafening, sophisticated silence.
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A few days ago, a heartbreaking video emerged from the terrorists’ camp. In it, Mrs. Folawe Alamu, a woman who dedicated her life to educating Nigerian children, was seen kneeling in the mud, broken and weeping under the elements. Her voice trembled as she begged President Bola Tinubu and Governor Seyi Makinde to save their lives. “We are in the cold, we are under the sun, we are under the rain,” she cried. “Please, don’t let them waste our lives.”
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How does a politician watch that video, look into the hollow eyes of a mother whose three-year-old is missing in a forest, and then comfortably climb a podium to chant party slogans? How do they justify spending billions of naira mobilising delegates, hiring campaign structures, and hosting lavish political dinners while the state claims it lacks the “logistical capability” to flush out bandits from a national park?

​The truth is as cold as it is devastating: in the calculus of the Nigerian ruling class, the ultimate currency is political power, not human life.
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To the political strategists coordinating the upcoming elections, acknowledging the true horror of the Oyo abductions is considered a public relations liability. It ruins the carefully constructed campaign narrative that the country is “stabilized.” Therefore, silence becomes a deliberate electoral strategy. If they don’t talk about it, they hope we will forget it. They are betting on our collective amnesia. They believe that by the time they share bags of rice, wrappers, and minor cash hand-outs at the primaries, the cries of the Oriire parents will be completely drowned out by the roar of campaign loudspeakers.
​We must refuse to play along with this deadly theater. We are being gaslit by our own leaders.
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Security is not a favor the government does for us; it is the fundamental debt the state owes its citizens. It is the social contract. If a government cannot guarantee that a child can go to a primary school in Oyo and return home with their head intact, that government has completely failed its primary purpose.
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As the political machine gears up for the upcoming ballots, the electorate must change the rules of the game. We must make the safety of our people the only metric that matters. Every politician who comes to ask for a vote must be confronted with the image of Mrs. Folawe Alamu kneeling in the mud. They must be asked hard questions about the forty-six hostages in the Oyo forest.

We cannot continue to sacrifice the blood of our children to feed the insatiable appetite of political ambition. President Tinubu and Governor Makinde must drop the campaign itineraries, halt the election posturing, and deploy the full weight of state intelligence and resources to bring these citizens home. History will not remember how many delegates they won; it will remember how they left our children to rot in the forest while they chased power.

​Abdulazeez Toheeb Olawale is a freelance journalist social based in Kano Nigeria. He can be reached via toheebazeez200@gmail.com or on Facebook @Abdulazeez Toheeb Olawale