By Oyedeji Ahmed
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has time for Lagos and APC’s primaries, but not for Ogbomoso.
Since Friday’s abduction of 46 pupils and teachers from LA School, Community High School, Ahoro-Esinle in Oriire LGA, the President has been absent. He has flown to Lagos for party business, to Kebbi and other states to push his 2027 bid. Yet he has not set foot in Oyo to comfort grieving families or meet Governor Seyi Makinde on the rescue efforts.
Insecurity now defines this administration. No one is safe. Not even children in classrooms. Across Nigeria, panic spreads. People flee homes and live in fear. Kidnapping booms while political elites fly their children abroad, leaving ordinary Nigerians to face poverty, broken schools, and violence.
Would the President have stayed away if this happened in the North? Would he not have condemned it forcefully and visited? What stops him from coming to Oyo, providing logistics, and showing leadership when 46 lives hang in the balance?
The brutal killing of mathematics teacher Michael Oyedokun, captured in a gruesome video, is a wound on the nation’s soul. These are not statistics. These are children. These are teachers whose only crime was educating our future.
This is no time for propaganda or press statements crafted for political gain. Not when families are drowning in tears and uncertainty.
Every level of government must rise above politics with one mission: bring every child and teacher home alive. To the family of Michael Oyedokun: No one should endure this pain. His death must not be in vain.
To the parents of the abducted: Millions pray with you for strength, protection, and safe return. To the people of Oriire: Terror must never defeat your spirit. Hold on. We are with you.
Enough of politics. Let humanity lead.
It is true that climate change is indeed fueling insecurity in the Southwest, as Dr. Rafiu Babatunde Ibrahim, formerly of LAUTECH and now a lecturer at UNIOSUN, rightly observed in his reaction to the abduction. The evidence is before us, in our forests, on our highways, and in the tears of parents still waiting for their children.
For generations, the Southwest knew two seasons: harmattan’s dry dust and the life-giving rains. The dry season cleared the bush, aiding farming and security.
But 2025 into 2026 broke that rhythm. The dry season never came. Rain fell in April and did not stop. By mid-2026, the truth was clear: the Southwest faced a climatic shift no one could ignore.
This is not just weather. It is a security emergency.
Climate change is reshaping Nigeria. Temperatures climb each decade. Rainfall turns erratic. Floods, droughts, and heatwaves multiply. The Sahara creeps south. The Southwest’s predictable rainforest pattern is collapsing.
Banditry, once a Northwestern plague, is now at our door. Between 2020 and 2024, over 10,000 died in bandit attacks in Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, and Kaduna. More than 7,000 were kidnapped between 2021 and 2023. Over 500,000 have been displaced. The World Bank estimates a $2.5 billion yearly loss.
The Southwest is catching up. In 2022, 47 banditry and kidnapping cases were recorded across the six states. By 2023, it doubled to 82. In 2024, it hit 124. Partial 2025 data shows 178. From 2020 to 2025, over 1,200 people were abducted here; 350+ died. The Lagos–Ibadan, Ibadan–Ife–Akure, and Ilorin–Ogbomoso–Oyo highways are now ambush zones. Gangs are organized, often linked to Northern bandits fleeing military pressure.
Forests in Oyo and Ogun, Ogunmakin, Fiditi, Igbeti, Opara, have become criminal fortresses. Two weeks ago in Esiele, Oriire LGA, bandits stormed a school, abducted 7 teachers and 39 pupils, including toddlers, and killed one teacher. The 46 victims remain missing. If 50 people can vanish from an Ogbomoso school, where is safe?
The link is climate. A normal dry season thins vegetation, exposes hideouts, and helps aerial surveillance. Without it, forests stay thick year-round. Dense canopy shields bandit camps, blunts drone patrols, and lets criminals move unseen.
Bandits fleeing Operation Hadarin Daji found what the North no longer offers: year-round cover. Drought up North also pushes herders south, fueling clashes. Jobless youth turn to kidnapping. Lake Chad’s 90% shrinkage since 1960 erased livelihoods for 30 million, feeding Boko Haram and bandit ranks. As the Northwest dries, the Southwest’s wet forests pull armed groups south.
NIMET and IPCC warn this is the new normal. By 2050, Southwest rainfall may rise 10–25%. The dry season could shrink by 30–50%. Forests will thicken, giving bandits more cover.
The rains of 2025–2026 were a warning. We cannot stop the climate from changing. But we can stop bandits from weaponizing it.
*What Must Happen Now*
1. *Federal Government*: Treat climate change as a threat multiplier in the National Security Strategy. Fund NIMET for localized, actionable security-weather intelligence.
2. *Southwest Governors*: Set up a Southwest Climate-Security Council. Audit every forest. Equip and empower Amotekun for cross-border operations.
3. *Traditional Rulers*: Mobilize communities. Revive local vigilantes. Report strange movements.
4. *Citizens*: Demand that leaders treat the failed 2025–2026 dry season as a crisis, not gist.
The forest has become a fortress. We must take it back.
I wept profusely when I visited the affected communities. I saw mothers crying for their children, and husbands and wives pleading for the rescue of their spouses. Blood stained the ground. In the hospitals, security operatives lay wounded from IEDs planted by the kidnappers. It was a cruel, brutal massacre.
Ten days now, the children and their teachers have been in captivity. They are being marched through the bush with no destination, no food, no water, enduring abuse. At night, in the rain, my heart breaks for them. Where do they sleep? How are they treated?
I mourn deeply with the families of those gruesomely murdered. May Almighty God grant their souls eternal rest and comfort the bereaved. To the families of the abducted, you have my prayers and solidarity. I salute the courage of our security operatives and local hunters, and I acknowledge the concerted efforts by authorities and stakeholders to secure the safe, unconditional release of every victim.
Although, the Inspector General of Police has visited on behalf of the Federal Government and deployed more personnel to the communities. That is appreciated. But it is not enough. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has yet to visit the state or meet Governor Seyi Makinde to commiserate over this tragedy.
I must commend the swift response of the Oyo State Government. Governor Seyi Makinde’s personal involvement, and through the Deputy Governor and other senior officials who visited the communities on Sunday. There is need for more stronger collaboration among traditional rulers across the zone to confront this crisis and prevent another, as well as a sustained diplomatic, strategic, and measured approaches that will secure the abductees’ release while minimizing further loss of life and property.
This is the time for the Federal Government to review and reduce the vast forest reserves that now serve as criminal hideouts. Ceding about 20 kilometers of reserve land to state governments for regulated, productive use by host communities will help break the hold of bandits.
Also, there is a need for State Police to support the overstretched Federal Police, while calling for accelerated legislative action. The time is now for a Military Base in the Ogbomoso Zone, preferably in Oriire LGA, given its proximity to forest reserves and repeated attacks. And Military checkpoints along strategic Oyo–Kwara border routes are critical to stop arms smuggling and infiltration.
Our children must come home. Our forests must be reclaimed. And our leaders must show up, not with statements alone, but with presence, policy, and protection.
Oyedeji Ahmed, LMP, is a journalist, publisher. He writes from Ogbomoso, Oyo state.
