Days After School Rescue, Gunmen Strike Oyo Again
The relief that swept through Oyo State barely a week ago, when 44 pupils and teachers walked free after 56 days in the grip of terrorists, has given way to fresh dread. Suspected gunmen have abducted Mr Matthew Kolawale Owoade, a 60-year-old headmaster popularly known as “Onaiye,” dragging the state’s education community back into a familiar nightmare and testing the confidence that last Friday’s rescue had begun to restore.
Owoade, who heads the Nomadic Basic School in Ogodu, Igbojaye, within Itesiwaju Local Government Area, was seized on the evening of Saturday, 11 July 2026, between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., while returning from his farm at Budo Aare. According to his son, Abiola Owoade, the assailants intercepted his father along the route and forced him into the surrounding bush. Shortly afterwards, the kidnappers called the family on the victim’s own mobile phone and demanded thirty million naira for his release. By about 8:20 a.m. the following morning, a community search team recovered his abandoned motorcycle in a nearby bush, the only trace left behind.
The Oyo State Police Command has confirmed the incident. Its spokesperson, Olayinka Ayanlade, said a farmer named Matthew Owoade had been kidnapped at Budo Aare, adding that “efforts are on to rescue the man unharmed and arrest the perpetrators.” The family has appealed beyond the conventional forces, calling on the Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Police Force, the Department of State Services, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the Western Nigeria Security Network, Amotekun, as well as local hunters and vigilantes, to intervene.
For the Nigeria Union of Teachers, the timing could hardly be crueller. In a statement signed by the Oyo State Chairman, Comrade Hassan Ajibola Fatai, and the Secretary, Comrade Salami Olukayode, the union described the report as one it had received “with deep concern,” noting that the abduction had thrown the victim’s family, colleagues and community into anxiety. The union urged the Oyo State Government, security agencies and other authorities to act without delay, insisting that educators “should not have to live in fear while carrying out their duties or engaging in legitimate means of livelihood.”
That plea carries weight because the wound is still raw. On 15 May 2026, heavily armed men on motorcycles stormed three schools in the Yawota and Ahoro-Esiele communities of Oriire Local Government Area, Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Community Grammar School and L.A. Primary School, abducting 39 pupils and seven teachers, including a principal and a child as young as two. One teacher, Joel Adesiyan, was killed during the raid, and a mathematics instructor, Michael Oyedokun, was beheaded in captivity, his killing filmed and circulated online in a bid to deter pursuing troops.
The captives regained their freedom on 10 July after an intelligence-led operation coordinated by the General Officer Commanding 2 Division, Major General Chinedu Nnebeife, drawing on troops, the DSS, the police, Amotekun and local hunters. The presidency, through spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, stressed that no ransom or prisoner swap was involved, and that eight suspects were arrested while others were neutralised. The military attributed the attack to the Ansaru terror group, whose hideouts stretched into the Old Oyo National Park.
The Oriire episode was widely regarded as the first mass school abduction of its kind in the South West, a region long spared the kidnappings associated with the North. President Bola Tinubu approved the recruitment of 1,000 forest guards in Oyo to secure the ungoverned forest belts that shelter such groups. The seizure of Owoade, coming so soon afterwards, suggests those spaces remain contested, and that the state’s teachers, once again, find themselves on the front line.