By Abdul-Ganiyy Akanbi <\/p>\n
The Yoruba Council of Elders, YCE, has condemned the coordinated abduction of over 45 pupils, students, and teachers from three schools in Oriire Local Government Area, Oyo State, on Friday, 15th May, 2026.<\/p>\n
The affected schools are Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yaworan, Community Grammar School, Esiele, and L. A. Primary School. <\/p>\n
In a statement signed by its Secretary-General, Chief Oladipo Oyewole, YCE described the attack as \u201cnot just a crime against Oyo State, but an assault on the conscience of Nigeria, on the future of the Southwest, and on the sacred right of every child to learn in safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pan-Yoruba sociocultural organization said schools must never become hunting grounds for kidnappers and bandits. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the face of this ugly occurrence, we call on the Federal Government of Nigeria to immediately deploy special forces, intelligence assets, and logistics support to ensure the safe and unconditional release of all abducted victims,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
YCE further called on the Governors of the six Southwest states \u2013 Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti and Lagos \u2013 to rise above partisan boundaries and deploy all available strategic resources through inter-state cooperation to secure lives and property.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout gainsaying, Yorubaland cannot afford to become the next frontier of mass abduction,\u201d Oyewole stated.<\/p>\n
The group said the Oyo incident is a symptom of a deeper national security crisis, and therefore, called for the strengthening of community and regional security architecture across Yorubaland.<\/p>\n
YCE urged Southwest governments to immediately provide necessary materials for the Amotekun Corps, give them more training, better equipment, and legal backing for intelligence-led operations.<\/p>\n
The Council also said it is necessary at this period for the six governors to recognize the statutory roles of the office of the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, alongside the contributions of Chief Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, in promoting peace in Yorubaland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe six Southwest governors should therefore engage them, along with similar indigenous security groups and other well-meaning persons and organizations in the Southwest, to spread their dragnet in the protection of our territories,\u201d YCE said.<\/p>\n
The group further called on the Governor of Oyo State to quickly establish a joint security task force for real-time intelligence sharing across the six states to prevent cross-border movement of criminals.<\/p>\n
YCE also recommended the deployment of Armed School Protection Units in high-risk Local Government Areas, especially those bordering forest reserves.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur children all over Yorubaland are not to be used as collateral damage. Every day we delay on this decisive action, we may lose another child\u2019s future and another parent\u2019s peace of mind,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n
The Council said it stands with the families of the abducted students and sympathizes with the family of the Mathematics teacher who was reportedly killed by the bandits during the attack.<\/p>\n
YCE prayed that the Almighty God would grant all those directly affected strength and fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.<\/p>\n
The abductions have renewed calls for urgent reforms in school security and regional collaboration across the Southwest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Abdul-Ganiyy Akanbi The Yoruba Council of Elders, YCE, has condemned the coordinated abduction of over 45 pupils, students, and teachers from three schools in Oriire Local Government Area, Oyo State, on Friday, 15th May, 2026. The affected schools are Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yaworan, Community Grammar School, Esiele, and L. A. Primary School. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13852,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13849\/revisions\/13852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}