A hired worker in Yawota community, Oyo State, Aduke Balogun who has no family in the area, has appealed to the government to rescue her ward among the scores of schoolchildren still in captivity, 14 days after terrorists stormed three schools in Oriire Local Government Area.
The appeal was made during a solidarity and condolence visit by the Oriire Youth Council to affected families, traditional rulers, and community leaders in Esinele and Yawota.
A video of the visit was posted on Tuesday by the Facebook page, Oriire ni tiwa, and went viral on Friday.
The interviews were conducted in Yoruba and translated by PUNCH Online.
In the footage, Balogun said she had relocated to the community for work and was solely responsible for her ward, Kehinde Kaosarat, whose biological parents were absent.
She said: “I am the father of the child and the mother of the child. Her parents are not here. Me too, I have no one. I came here as a hired worker.”
Balogun said the morning of the attack began without warning.
“In the morning, we bathed our children. They went to school. After 9am, we saw some people dressed like soldiers. We were saying, which visitors have entered Yawota,” she said.
The calm was shattered within seconds. “Before we knew it, we started hearing gunshots. Everybody started running around. Nobody was around,” she said.
She said she caught a brief glimpse of her daughter in the chaos before losing her. “I saw my daughter, Kaosarat. Her name is Kehinde Kaosarat,” Balogun said.
Her appeal to the government was direct. She said, “Please help me. We are visitors. We are begging the government. We know they are working. But they should help free our children,” she said.
Another mother, Madam Agnes, also spoke during the youth council’s visit.
She described the moment the shooting started.
“Shortly after 9am, the children resumed school. The bandits who were dressed as soldiers passed. We all thought they were visitors who came to greet the school children. All of a sudden, we started hearing gunshots and they were very loud,” she said.
Agnes said residents fled in every direction without stopping.
“Nobody stayed. We all started running. Nobody stopped to wait for the children. We were all running inside the bush,” she said.
She said the danger extended beyond one community.
“They had killed a youth in Yawota near the nursery school. We were running towards Esinele. We didn’t know there was danger there also. Please, we are begging. They are small,” she said, crying.
The Elesinele of Esinele, Tajudeen Abioye, who also received the Oriire Youth Council delegation, confirmed the scale of the abduction.
He said: “What happened is that kidnappers entered this town on Friday. They abducted our children, teachers, and the principal. That is what happened that made the name of this town popular.”
Abioye appealed for divine and government intervention. “God should please have mercy on us and should not let us be known with bad things,” he said.
Terrorists on motorbikes had attacked Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota; Community Grammar School, Ahoro-Esinele; and L.A. Primary School, all in Oriire LGA, around 9:30am on Friday, May 15, abducting pupils, students, and staff members.
Among those taken was mathematics teacher Michael Oyedokun, who was subsequently beheaded by the abductors, with a video of the killing circulated online.
The vice principal, Mrs Alamu Folawe, was also abducted.
The Defence Headquarters confirmed that the armed men were JAS terrorists previously dislodged from North-East enclaves.
Saturday PUNCH reported that the abductors opened communication channels with the Oyo State government but refused to negotiate with the victims’ families, insisting they would only speak with the governor.
Governor Seyi Makinde’s Special Adviser on Security, Abayomi Fagbenro, has since dismissed viral social media claims that the hostages had been released, describing them as false.
Source: The Punch
