MARCEL MBAMALU
They came home after 56 days. Buses rolled in, cameras flashed, and a grateful nation exhaled.
But for the children of Community High School, Ahoro-Esiele, and the teachers who survived with them, relief did not erase the questions.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelTwo teachers were killed. One was beheaded on video. The survivors speak of fear, of trekking through forests, of buses with no number plates and men speaking Hausa who told them “the government sent us.”
So what really happened in those 56 days? Was this a military rescue, a negotiated release, or both? And why, in the rush to celebrate, are we asking fewer questions than the tragedy demands?
READ ALSO: Senate Approves ₦50m for Families of Soldiers, Teachers Killed in Oyo Rescue Operation
In this week’s article we look past the videos and the commendations. Because bringing children home alive is not a favour from the state. It is the state’s first duty. The second duty is to tell the truth about how they got home — and to make sure no other classroom becomes a target.
The principal, Rachael Alamu, spoke for the survivors. She described 56 days of fear, uncertainty and psychological trauma. Hope, she said, began to die when two teachers were killed after the abduction on 15 May 2026. The killing of Michael Oyedokun was worse — his beheading was filmed and circulated to force the government’s hand.
Now those deaths risk being buried under the relief. But should a tragedy of this scale be measured only by the number of people who returned alive? Or should it also be measured by the answers we demand after?
Governor Seyi Makinde called it “sufficiently grave and unusual.” He set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry. “For seven years, we didn’t witness anything like this in Oyo State,” he said. Beyond politics, the Governor was right. Some incidents are too serious for press statements alone.
Yet the Senate rejected the call for an independent review and urged authorities to “conclude investigations.” But conclude what, exactly? The videos? The commendations?
Is Nigeria’s security challenge truly only an internal matter? In December 2025, we welcomed a coordinated strike with the United States against ISIS-linked targets in Sokoto. Details were scarce, but the partnership was not. If international cooperation is acceptable against terror, why is independent scrutiny controversial after a school abduction? What does it cost the government to open the books and let Nigerians see what worked, what failed, and what must change?
Beyond The Rescue Video
The government released videos after the children returned. In them, the children thanked the government and security agencies. The message was clear: success.
But for children who had just endured 56 days of captivity, was their recovery centered? Or was their trauma repackaged as a public relations win?
Rescuing citizens is not a favour. It is the constitutional duty of the state under Section 14(2)(b). The public deserved to know the children were safe. The children deserved to have their dignity protected.
The GOC 2 Division, Chinedu Ralph-Nnebeife, said troops entered the forest immediately but were slowed by difficult terrain. The operation, he said, was later expanded with special forces and coordination with the NSA and Defence Headquarters. A later military video presented a seamless, multi-agency operation.
But a survivor’s account complicates that picture. Teacher Zacchaeus Olatunde said: “We trekked for about 40 minutes to one hour before they provided motorcycles that took us close to the nearest village. They later stopped and told us they could not go further, so we trekked for another one and a half hours before we got to where the government people who came to rescue us were.”
He added: “When we saw the buses, we were afraid because the people were speaking Hausa. We even asked them to show us their identity cards. They kept assuring us that the government sent them.” More troubling: “The buses had no number plates and had Arabic inscriptions.”
I am not saying his account disproves the official version. I am saying it raises questions that demand answers. How were they located? Who made first contact? Was it a raid, a release, or a mix of both? Nigerians are not entitled to operational secrets that endanger lives. But we are entitled to the truth.
The Dignity We Owed Them
Then there is how the children were presented. Their faces were shown nationwide, unblurred, unprotected.
Section 11 of the Child Rights Act guarantees every child dignity and protection from treatment that undermines their wellbeing. In an age where a video never dies, those images will follow them. In five, ten, twenty years, a child may scroll online and be reminded: “You were once a victim.”
The question was never whether Nigerians should know the children were rescued. The question is whether their healing mattered as much as the headline. Instead of shielding them, the communication centered gratitude to government and to the President. That is a choice, and it was the wrong one.
What About The Others?
The questions cannot end with Oyo. Around the same time, suspected Boko Haram/ISWAP gunmen abducted about 42 children from Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira-Uba, Borno, according to community leaders and Senator Ali Ndume.
No videos. No press briefing. No clarity on whether they were rescued, released, or still missing. Every child taken from a classroom is a failure of protection. Every family waiting deserves the same urgency we gave Oyo.
This is where we are as a nation: we celebrate returns, and we forget the cost. We film gratitude, and we avoid accountability. We set up inquiries, and we reject them.
But security is not built on silence. It is built on truth.
The children of Ahoro-Esiele came home. That is good. But coming home cannot be the end of the story. We owe them, and the next set of children in a classroom somewhere, three things: the truth about what happened, reforms that close the gaps, and the assurance that their lives will never again be used as bargaining chips.
Until we answer “Released or Rescued?”, we have not finished the rescue.
And until we protect both their bodies and their dignity, we have not truly brought them home.
Dr. Marcel Mbamalu is a distinguished communication scholar, journalist, and entrepreneur with three decades of experience in the media industry. He holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and serves as the publisher of Prime Business Africa, a renowned multimedia news platform catering to Nigeria and Africa's socio-economic needs.
Dr. Mbamalu's journalism career spans over two decades, during which he honed his skills at The Guardian Newspaper, rising to the position of senior editor. Notably, between 2018 and 2023, he collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Northeast Nigeria, training senior journalists on conflict reporting and health journalism.
Dr. Mbamalu's expertise has earned him international recognition. He was the sole African representative at the 2023 Jefferson Fellowship program, participating in a study tour of the United States and Asia (Japan and Hong Kong) on inclusion, income gaps, and migration issues.
In 2020, he was part of a global media team that covered the United States presidential election.
Dr. Mbamalu has attended prestigious media trainings, including the Bloomberg Financial Journalism Training and the Reuters/AfDB Training on "Effective Coverage of Infrastructural Development in Africa."
As a columnist for The Punch Newspaper, with insightful articles published in other prominent Nigerian dailies, including ThisDay, Leadership, The Sun, and The Guardian, Dr. Mbamalu regularly provides in-depth analysis on socio-political and economic issues.
