EXPRESSO>>> By Steve Osuji
Rescue Or Release: It has been a well-established fact that the Tinubu administration is fuelled by propaganda and lies. Bayo Onanuga, our erstwhile friend and professional colleague, as Igbo say, has practically learned to use the left hand in old age. He has redefined the art of fobbing and elevated half-truths to Sanskrit.
But Brother Onanuga, chief spokesman of the Tinubu administration is to be pitied. He’s not the cause of the zero-credibility environment that exists today. He is only selling a very bad product. Both the president and his governance systems have turned out odious. Hardly anyone believes them anymore.
On many occasions, this government rebuts itself, reverses its pronouncements or entirely revokes everything it does.
This is the situation in the current resolution of the kidnapping victims of schools in Oyo State. The horde of students and teachers supposedly snatched by ISWAP bandits and spirited into the heart of the Oyo forest reserve are back home, thank goodness, after about two months (56 days) in captivity.
However, controversy continues to rage as to the circumstances surrounding their eventual freedom from their captors.
Was it a rescue or a ransomed release? The federal government and military tell Nigerians that it was the result of weeks of intelligence gathering and encirclement which culminated in the final invasion and rescue of the pupils and their teachers.
Onanuga in his press release on the matter, detailed how Nigeria’s gallant military carried out the rescue operation and released all the 44 captives intact with no loss of life or injury to nary a single one.
There was also no quid pro quo. Meaning that no ransom was paid and no detained terrorists were exchanged.
But the military has a slightly different version of the tale: pressure from the joint military, intelligence and security task force had caused the terrorists to see reason to “release all the victims unconditionally.”
But in another twist, the same army statement says the military suffered casualties while some terrorists were neutralised, about eight were arrested.
WE WERE RELEASED, VICTIM
Speaking in a live interview on a Lagos radio station, 99.3 Nigeria Info, (July 16, 2026) a supposed victim of the Oyo kidnap, named Olutoye Zaccheus, narrated how they were freed.
He said they were never starved of food, even though they were blindfolded most of the time so they couldn’t tell their location.
They never had a bath or change of clothes for 56 days.
Asked whether they were rescued or released, he said that the terrorists happily released them because it seemed the authorities settled with them.
They were not only released, they were directed on how to get out of the forest. According to Olutoye, they trekked for about one hour to a stream, crossed it and found coaster buses with tinted glasses waiting for them.
The occupants of the buses claimed they were from the DSS. The victims were sceptical but upon being reassured, they boarded the buses which took them to the Army Base in Ibadan.
WHO’S FOOLING WHOM?
From the foregoing, it’s apparent that someone is lying here. Like Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State who’s in the eye of the storm said, there’s obviously a need for an independent probe of the heist called Oyo kidnapping.
There are too many questions begging for answers here. One is tempted to draw the conclusion that someone is playing politics with the lives of these hapless school children and their teachers.
The Tinubu administration has lost every grain of its credibility if it ever had one.
The Nigerian military is also being sucked into what looks like a sick political propaganda going on currently.
What manner of terrorists would release “kidnappers” only to allow itself to be gunned down or arrested?
To cut a long, silly story short, the popular opinion out there is either that the federal government paid ransom to the children of perdition or it was a FAKE kidnap ab initio.
This column submits that this administration must get serious; begin to do the right things if it wants Nigerians to begin to take it seriously again.
We need to get to the root of this Oyo heist, for that’s what it seems to be.
LAST LINE: APC LOOTING FESTIVAL, FEATURING MALAMI
The world woke up yesterday to the list of properties allegedly acquired illegally by Malam Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
The court had ordered the forfeiture of 48 of 57 real estate properties suspected to be owned by Malami and considered as proceeds of crime.
The list which is totaled at N212 billion is simply troubling to the soul.
The very idea of stealing and accumulating so much from the commonwealth is mind-bending. How do people like Malami sleep? What do they tell their children? Perhaps they have taught the hapless kids that roguery is life?
The coming of the ruling APC to power in Nigeria since 2015 has ushered in this industrial scaling stealing in government.
However, the optics out there today is that the Tinubu gang is currently outpilferring the Buhari people of yore.
The handwriting is on the wall. What with the biggest projects like the Lagos-Calaber Coastal Highway kicked off without a public bid. That’s the epitome of corruption.
