One of the teachers rescued from the mass abduction of pupils and staff in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State, Zachery Olatunde, has explained that the primary school pupils were wearing matching native attire when they regained freedom because they were abducted on a Friday, the designated day for traditional wear in schools.
Olatunde said the clarification became necessary following claims on social media suggesting that the pupils’ coordinated ankara outfits were evidence that the abduction had been staged.
The teacher, who spent 56 days in captivity alongside 43 other victims, spoke in a video shared by Oyo Matters on Thursday, dismissing the allegations as false and misleading.
Speaking in Yoruba, Olatunde said the pupils were still wearing the same clothes they had on when gunmen invaded their schools on Friday, May 15.
“They said the children were wearing matching ankara. Are they not in Oyo State? Don’t they know that the government has ordered that schoolchildren should be wearing native attires on Friday?” he said.
“Primary school pupils in private schools now wear native wears on Friday. We the teachers wore native attire, but secondary school pupils wore school uniform,” he added.
Olatunde also addressed comments questioning why the victims appeared relatively clean after spending several weeks in captivity. He explained that the abductors occasionally washed their clothes whenever they became excessively dirty.
“The abductors are the ones that wash the clothes for us a few times while we were in captivity, when they notice that we are already smelling. Don’t they (critics) see how rough and dirty we the teachers were? Didn’t they see how rough our beards were, like that of a bush rat?” he said.
The teacher further dismissed claims that the kidnapping was orchestrated, insisting that the deaths recorded during the ordeal proved the incident was real.
“Those saying the kidnapping was staged don’t know what they are saying. If it was staged, would they have killed two people? If it was staged, what we went through in that place was not good at all,” he said.
Appealing to members of the public, Olatunde urged Nigerians to stop spreading what he described as false narratives about the abduction.
“So those that are saying it was staged are all telling lies. It was not staged. It was real. So please stop saying those types of things,” he said.
The Federal Government announced on July 10 that all 44 pupils and teachers abducted from Community Grammar School, Baptist Nursery and Primary School, and L.A. Primary School in the Esiele and Yawota communities of Oriire Local Government Area had been rescued following a coordinated security operation.
The victims were kidnapped on May 15 when armed men attacked the three schools. During the attack, the Assistant Headmaster of L.A. Primary School, Joel Adesiyan, was killed while attempting to escape.
A few days into their captivity, a Mathematics teacher, Michael Oyedokun, was also killed by the abductors.
The victims were eventually rescued through a joint operation involving the Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Police Force, the Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), the Amotekun Corps, and local vigilante groups.
The Presidency has maintained that the rescue operation was carried out successfully without the payment of ransom or the granting of any concession to the kidnappers.
