ABUJA, Nigeria – More than 50 days after dozens of students and staff were seized by Islamic militants in southwestern Nigeria’s Oyo State, a successful government operation has freed all surviving captives, senior officials confirmed Friday.
Government spokesperson Bayo Onanuga announced the outcome of the rescue mission, though he did not release an exact figure for the number of rescued students. When the abduction first occurred on May 15, authorities initially reported that over 40 people were taken captive alongside the students, one of whom – a teacher – was executed by the militants just hours after the kidnapping.
In addition to freeing the captives, the operation led to the arrest of eight suspected militants, while an undisclosed number of attackers were killed during the raid, according to Onanuga.
The May kidnapping in Oyo State marked a worrying expansion of Nigeria’s long-running security crisis. For years, mass school abductions linked to militant and criminal groups have been concentrated primarily in the country’s northern region, so the attack in a southern state signaled an escalation of threats to civilian safety across the nation.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu emphasized in an official statement that the successful military operation has resolved the more than 50-day standoff and siege, delivering long-awaited relief to the entire country and especially to the families of the abducted victims.
The Oyo State abduction was not an isolated incident that week: just days after the seizure in the southwest, dozens more children were kidnapped in Borno State, the long-standing epicenter of Nigeria’s insecurity challenges linked to extremist insurgency.
Mass school abductions have become a persistent and widespread crisis across Nigeria, where militant and criminal groups regularly target educational institutions to pressure the federal government, generate public fear, and extract large ransom payments to fund their operations.