By Samson Oyelere
The morning of 15th May in Oriire Local Government, Oyo State began like every other school day. Children in crisp uniforms, teachers with lesson notes in hand, and the quiet hope that education, once again, would triumph over fear.
By mid-morning, that hope was shattered.
In broad daylight, gunmen stormed the school. It was not a furtive midnight raid. It was brazen. It was cruel. It was a message. Before the cameras and in full view of a traumatised community, a nation-builder was slaughtered, another was gunned down.
They did not die as statistics. They died standing between danger and the children they swore to teach, to protect, to nurture. They fell so that others might live. Their blood stained the chalkboards they loved, and their silence now echoes louder than any assembly bell.
What made this attack different was not just the daylight brutality. It was the callousness that followed, the refusal to speak with grieving families, the demand to negotiate only with government, the attempt to turn human lives into bargaining chips. It was a direct assault on the soul of education and on every parent who sends a child to school believing they will return home.
For days, Nigeria held its breath. Classrooms across the country emptied in solidarity.
On behalf of teachers in Ogun and across Nigeria, we pay heartfelt tribute to the National Leadership of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, whose voice never wavered. To the EDOLOKOE Regional Leadership and the Oyo State NUT Leadership, thank you for providing the moral compass, the organisation, and the nationwide protest that sustained the pressure until the world could not look away. You reminded government that teachers are not disposable.
We also acknowledge with profound gratitude the intervention of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Executive Governor of Oyo State, the Nigerian Military, the Police, DSS, NSCDC, local vigilantes, and all security outfits who laboured day and night for the release of our colleagues and pupils.
We bow our heads for the security personnel who paid the supreme price while defending their fatherland in the course of this rescue. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten. You died that teachers and learners might be free.
To the released students and teachers, and to their families who have endured unimaginable anguish: congratulations on your freedom. Nigeria has happened to you, but God has not abandoned you. May the Lord continue to deliver you from all evil, heal your wounds, and restore the peace that was stolen from you.
Yet, as we rejoice, questions remain sketchy and troubling. Nigerians are asking: How were the abductees rescued? Who rescued them? Where? How? And what has become of their abductors? The dramatic, almost staged, outlook of the kidnap and rescue insults our intelligence. Those who play with the lives of nation-builders and their students must know: we are watching, and we will not be silent.
This tragedy must be the last. I therefore urge the Oyo State Government to implement the Safe School Initiative in full with perimeter fencing, security personnel, functional emergency response, and community intelligence. A school must never again become a theatre of war.
To the fallen heroes: you taught to the very end. We will teach in your memory. We will protect in your honour. And we will demand, in your name, a Nigeria where a teacher can teach and a child can learn without fear.
May their souls rest in perfect peace. May Nigeria find her conscience again.
Samson Oyelere is Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Ogun State Wing
