Oyo abduction: NANS, CSO clash over protest disruption

The National Association of Nigeria Students and Take It Back Movement Nigeria, on Thursday, traded words over the abduction of schoolchildren and their teachers in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State.

The duo engaged themselves verbally during a Town Hall Series, Oyo State, organized by the News Central, with the theme, “Oyo At A Crossroads: Security, Safety and The Future,” held at Ibadan Civic Centre, Agodi in Ibadan, the state capital.

In their separate interviews with The PUNCH on the sideline of the meeting, NANS and the movement disagreed over the recent protest on the Oyo abductees in which the duo clashed around Bodija in Ibadan North Local Government Area of the state.

The PUNCH reports that many school children and their teachers were abducted during coordinated attacks on Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota, Community Grammar School and L.A. Primary School, Esiele, in Oriire Local Government, on Friday, May 15, 2026.

Speaking with our correspondent, the state Assistant General Secretary of NANS Joint Campus Council, Damilare Olayemi, alleged that CSO has always been found of castigating students’ body whenever issue of national important arises.

He said, “We are here for the town hall meeting, and people have been saying their opinions on how to make this insecurity issue better. So, when it time of civil society organizations, Take It Back Movement was now saying the government was sponsoring us to disrupt their protests which was not true. The day of that incident, I was there, because we were heading to Oriire in Ogbomoso where the incident happened.

“We were buying fuel at one of the filling stations around Bodija axis and they block the road. We have about 30 vehicles on the road. And we told them to allow us to move and that was what transpared, within a twinkle of an eye, they started throwing stones on us. Are they expecting us not to retaliate? It is not possible.

“You are now here saying it was government that sent us to disrupt their protest. We protested to the Governor’s Office that very day where Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigeria Union of Teachers, Trade Union Congress, workers and other affiliated unions were protesting, and the government said it’s working on it.

“The governor said we can’t keep protesting because the kidnappers will leverage on it to hold the abductees more. And you are now here saying we were hired by the government to disrupt your protest. How? Our stand is that we believe government is working on it, and if they are not working on it, they should do more. But these people should not come here or go anywhere and be spoiling the name of our association,” the NANS Assistant General Secretary stated.

Femi Adeyeye, one of the representatives of Take It Back Movement at the meeting, explained that the movement was on a peaceful protest when the NANS members engaged them.

Adeyeye explained that the students’ body members were not in Ibadan before the commencement of the protest, alleging that they were mobilized to come over to disrupt the protest.

He said, “We were protesting on that fateful day only to see them coming towards us at Bodija, coming to us in their large number. If you check the video, we were not as even many. So, how can we now block the road? So, that’s not true. I know when they came into the states, because as we started protesting, calling out governments, governments had to look for people who can counter the protest. And that’s what government does every time, divide and rule. You have to look for people who can counter the protesters.

“That’s what they always do. You know when protests happen, you have pro-protesters, anti-protesters. We know all of these things. And that was what they came to do that day. And because our people did not retreat, because we cannot allow these people to continue to undermine our freedom, it then became a fisticuff. It’s quite unfortunate that we’re having town halls to discuss insecurity. Normally, at peacetime, other countries are discussing developments. But Nigeria has been so ridden with different issues these days. Kidnapping is now the trending topic.

“What I made in my submission was that, as a citizen, I do not have the solution. Some people thought what I said does not make sense, but it’s true. I did not vote myself to power. The only solution I have is to speak, is to use my voice. I voted some people who campaigned for me, and said, oh, they have the best ideas on how to solve this problem. So, they should solve it, but if they cannot solve it, they should leave, resign. It’s as simple as that. So, nobody should come and try to tell us, don’t politicize it. No. It’s a political issue. Insecurity is a political issue. The kidnappers, the bandits, the terrorists, they are political tools. They are, in fact, a result. Yes. Ideologically, they are results of the things we did not take care of for a long time.

“The children you did not send to school, the people you did not give social security, I mean jobs, because they are an idle hand, and it’s the devil’s workshop. So, they have now grown up to become willing tools for bandits and terrorists, and we are now complaining. It’s a political issue. It started from a policy, do you understand? The insecurity we have today is a political issue. It started from a policy. The solutions that we also put to it are going to be political solutions.”

He added, “If we sit down here, from now till any time, we cannot solve the problem, because we have voted some people who should solve the problem. They are the ones who have all the guns. It is in political science they would say the state has the monopoly of violence. So, they have failed us, because we have told them that we don’t have power on our own. In fact, we have given every power we have to governments.

“So, the real solution lies with the government. Government knows where these people are. They know, they cannot tell us they don’t know where they are. What do they want? Another thing I must quickly add in my ranting, because I’m actually ranting here, is that we must also stop commercializing insecurity. Insecurity in Nigeria today has now become an economic endeavor. Now you have the commercial chain. You have the kidnappers. You have people who bring food for them. How do they eat? How do these kidnappers eat? How do they treat themselves? So, that’s an economy. You have those who supply them arms. It’s an economy. You have those who are negotiators. Those ones too are an economy. It’s a duty for them.