It was one of the most extensive multi-agency rescue missions ever mounted in Nigeria as 44 pupils and teachers seized by terrorists from Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State on 15 May were freed Friday after a surgical, intelligence-driven operation that ripped through the kidnappers’ network inside the Old Oyo National Park and beyond.
The Nigerian Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Danjuma Jonah Danjuma confirmed the breakthrough ending nearly two months of captivity for the victims and closing one of the most closely watched abduction cases in the region.
The rescue was spearheaded by troops of the 2 Division, Nigerian Army, Ibadan, under the command of the General Officer Commanding, Major General CR Nnebeife. What set the mission apart was the scale of inter-agency muscle brought to bear on a single terror cell.
Working alongside the Army were Special Forces elements from the Nigerian Navy and Air Force
– The National Counter Terrorism Centre under the Office of the National Security Adviser; Defence Headquarters operatives; Department of State Services and National Intelligence Agency; Nigeria Police and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps; Local vigilantes, hunters and Amotekun operatives providing terrain-level intelligence.
The joint force spent over a month mapping the kingpins behind the abduction, tracing their logistics chain, identifying informants embedded in surrounding communities, and pinpointing hideouts deep inside the Old Oyo National Park Forest.
How the Kidnappers Were Broken
Rather than a single dramatic assault, the operation unfolded as a slow strangulation of the terror network. Coordinated arrests were carried out across Oyo State and multiple other states — a pattern consistent with dismantling the group’s financial pipelines, informant rings and safe houses before touching the hostages.
The pressure worked. According to the military, the mounting arrests and disruption of the group’s operational base left the kidnappers so destabilised that they released the pupils and teachers unconditionally — a rare outcome in Nigeria’s kidnap-for-ransom economy, and one that signals a shift toward attritional dismantling rather than negotiated releases.
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Follow-up operations, the Army said, are ongoing.
Casualties and Aftermath
Officials stressed that the operation was designed to avoid collateral damage and secure the safe return of the children and teachers — a difficult calibration in forested terrain. That objective was achieved on the hostage side, but security forces sustained casualties, a reminder of the human cost behind the announcement.
The freed victims are now receiving medical care at an undisclosed facility and will be handed over to the Oyo State Government before being reunited with their families.
The Bigger Picture
The rescue lands at a moment when the Old Oyo National Park — a vast, poorly policed expanse straddling Oyo and Kwara States — has emerged as a fresh haven for armed groups pushed out of the North-West.
That a criminal network could hold nearly four dozen victims inside the park for close to two months underscores how deeply terror cells have entrenched themselves in South-West forest reserves.
The 2 Division’s ability to fuse conventional troops with intelligence services, police, civil defence and locally rooted vigilantes such as Amotekun points to an evolving playbook: intelligence-first, arrest-driven, forest-centred. If sustained, it could reshape how Nigeria confronts the migration of kidnapping syndicates into the South-West.
Maj. Gen. Nnebefie acknowledged the Governor of Oyo State, Engr Seyi Makinde, and the people of the state for their sustained cooperation, and paid tribute to the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the Minister of Defence, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Service Chiefs, the Inspector General of Police, and the Directors General of the DSS and NIA for what he described as seamless coordination across agencies.
A separate note of appreciation was extended to the media and the wider Nigerian public, with a renewed call for vigilance and timely intelligence-sharing as follow-up operations continue.
Crediblenewsng.com
