by Mohammed Bello Doka
1 June, 2026
When was the last time a Nigerian president sent the Chief of Defence Staff, the National Security Adviser, the Inspector-General of Police, and his own Chief of Staff to negotiate the release of kidnapped schoolchildren in Katsina?
The answer is never. On May 30, 2026, President Bola Tinubu dispatched precisely that constellation of power to Ogbomoso, Oyo State, following the abduction of 46 pupils and teachers from Baptist Nursery and Primary School and other schools in Oriire Local Government Area on May 15. The delegation included Femi Gbajabiamila, Nuhu Ribadu, Tunji Disu, and Christopher Musa. They visited the palace of the Soun of Ogbomoso, met with the widow of a teacher reportedly killed by the abductors, and announced the immediate recruitment of 1,000 forest guards in collaboration with the Oyo State Government. The president also approved a specialised tactical rescue team to intensify efforts to secure the victims' release.
Now examine the ledger of northern anguish. On November 17, 2025, bandits abducted 25 schoolgirls from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State. No delegation arrived. No Chief of Staff visited. No forest guards were recruited. On November 21, 2025, 315 schoolchildren and staff were kidnapped from St Mary's Catholic School in Papiri, Niger State. The federal government sent a lone envoy. That was all. On December 12, 2025, bandits killed a pregnant woman and abducted an unspecified number of residents in Katsina State. President Tinubu issued a statement through his spokesman, describing the incident as "gruesome" and "heart-rending." That was all.
According to data compiled by Peoples Gazette, 597 schoolchildren and students have been abducted across Nigeria since President Tinubu assumed office on May 29, 2023. That is an average of 199 students every year of his presidency. In 2023 alone, four major school attacks were recorded, resulting in the deaths of 179 students. In April 2024, 26 students of Darul Kitab Islamic Orphanage and School in Kogi were abducted. On May 6, 2026, six students of Federal University, Lafia, were taken hostage. None of these incidents produced a delegation of the scale and composition now seen in Oyo.
The president's apologists have already assembled their defence. They will ask what former President Muhammadu Buhari did during his eight years in power to secure the North. They will demand to know where the northern governors are, why they have not secured their own states, what the Sultan of Sokoto is doing with his influence, and whether northern communities have ever truly held their own leaders accountable. These are convenient distractions, not answers. When a kidnapper takes a child, no father says, "Let me first check what my own father did wrong before I demand my child's return." The issue before Nigeria today is not what Buhari failed to do. The issue is what Tinubu is doing right now, in real time, with cameras rolling. If the defence of a sitting president requires reaching back to his predecessor, that defence has already collapsed. The question is not whether northern governors have failed. The question is why a president from the Southwest can mobilise the entire national security apparatus within 15 days of an abduction in Oyo but cannot send a single high-ranking official to any of the seven northwestern APC states after six months of mass abductions. The apologists want to change the subject because the subject is indefensible.
The people trying to market President Tinubu to the North for the 2027 election deserve special scrutiny. They travel from Abuja to Kaduna, from Kano to Sokoto, whispering that the president will do better in a second term, that his first term was about settling in, that northerners should be patient. Patient for what? For more lone envoys? For more press statements while children remain in bandit camps? These marketers know the truth but hide it behind campaign promises. They know that the president sent a full delegation to Oyo within two weeks. They know that no such delegation has visited Kebbi after six months. They know that the disparity is not accidental but intentional. Yet they stand before northern audiences and speak of a president who loves all Nigerians equally. Who are they trying to fool? A man who rushes to rescue Yoruba children while northern children are treated as collateral damage does not love northerners. He needs their votes. There is a difference.
The APC apologists will tell you that the North should be grateful because Tinubu appointed northerners to key positions. Which positions? The National Security Adviser who travelled to Oyo is from the North. The Inspector-General of Police who travelled to Oyo is from the North. The Chief of Defence Staff who travelled to Oyo is from the North. Northern officials were sent to rescue Yoruba children. Does that sound like a president who values the North? He uses northerners as instruments to serve his ethnic interest and then expects northerners to applaud. Does a hired labourer celebrate when his employer sends him to work on the employer's own house? Does that labourer mistake his wage for love? The president has given the North appointments, not attention. He has given northerners titles, not security. He has given them positions, not protection. And now his marketers want northerners to confuse being used with being valued.
Consider what these apologists are asking northerners to accept. They are asking a mother in Zamfara whose child has been missing for six months to vote for a president who never visited her state. They are asking a father in Katsina whose daughter was taken from school to trust a leader who sent forest guards to Oyo but not to his community. They are asking a community in Kebbi that buried a pregnant woman killed by bandits to believe that a second term will bring change when the first term brought only silence. When a president shows you who he prioritises, believe him. When he shows you who he ignores, believe that too. The marketers cannot erase the delegation to Oyo. They cannot erase the lone envoy to Kebbi. They cannot erase the fact that the president moved heaven and earth for Yoruba children and moved nothing for northern children. What more evidence do northerners need?
The northern governors who continue to stand on President Tinubu's mandate are not victims of this disparity. They are its enablers. They sing the APC mandate song, "On your mandate, Bola, on your mandate," while their constituents are buried. They collect federal allocations and security votes while armed gangs operate from forest enclaves with impunity. They have not demanded a delegation. They have not protested the silence. They have not called out the ethnic calculus that leaves their people abandoned. They stand on his mandate because the mandate serves them. It serves them with appointments, with budgets, with access. Their people receive nothing.
This is the lesson to data boys. Numbers without context are propaganda. Statistics without humanity are weapons. You can count every school kidnapping from 2023 to 2026. You can chart the frequency, the geography, the ransom demands. But if your numbers do not account for the fact that a president sent his entire national security apparatus to rescue 46 Yoruba children while leaving 315 northern children to a lone envoy, then your numbers are worthless. The data does not exonerate President Tinubu. It condemns him. It shows that he knows how to respond. He knows whom to send. He knows what resources to deploy. He simply chooses not to deploy them for the Muslim North.
The question for northerners is no longer about banditry or kidnapping or the failures of the security services. The question is about dignity. How many more of your children must be taken before you stop singing the mandate song? How many more pregnant women must be slaughtered before you see that this president does not care about you? The data boys will provide graphs and charts to distract you. Look instead at the delegation in Ogbomoso. That is the only data point that matters. It tells you everything you need to know about who President Bola Tinubu values and who he abandons. Believe it.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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