Oyo Abduction: Senator Buhari Reveals How Bean Seller Earned ₦20,000 Daily From Kidnappers Before Attack

Senator for Oyo North, Abdulfatai Buhari, has explained how the armed gunmen that abducted 46 schoolchildren and teachers from schools in Yawota and Esiele communities in Oriire LGA of Oyo State carried out surveillance before launching the attack on May 15.

Their activities, he said, left telltale signs that could have helped nip the attack in the bud if reported.

The senator made the statement as a guest on a news and current affairs programme on Arise TV on Thursday night.
“Look at this school for instance in that Esiele and Yawota. They first went to Yawota and selected nine students.

From Yawota to Esiele is about five to eight minutes drive and then they came to Esiele to pick the remaining students and teachers. One of the teachers was trying to escape out the window. He’d been shot.

Another person, he is not even a teacher, he is just an okada (commercial motorbike) rider. He was dropping somebody from Yawota to Esiele and they think he was chasing them. He was shot.

The senator said the location of the schools affected in remote rural communities made them highly susceptible to attacks.
Now back to the (Safer) Schools Initiative; most of the time, schools in the rural areas are always about three, four classrooms. “It’s a very remote area,” he said.

Buhari recounted how strange business activities might have indicated the presence of the criminal elements around the area.

“There is a woman selling beans and bread two days before the strike,” he said. Normally her take-home is maybe N1,000, N1,200.

“But she was making N10,000, N15,000, N20,000 for the two days before the strike. She thought that maybe there is a market boom and instead of reporting it to Baale (traditional ruler) or any of the teachers that some certain people come here to buy, she thought it was her business booming or they are building certain things around that area,” he said.

The attackers were gathering information as a prelude to the attack, the senator said.

“Unfortunately, it turned out that those people were doing what they call surveillance, so when they struck two days later, they realized the people buying beans and bread worth N10,000, N15,000, this is their intention. “Sometimes information is also very important,” Buhari said.