Coincidence or Pattern? What Oyo and Enugu Are Really Asking Nigeria

 

A claim has been circulating online this week, drawing a direct line between two tragic incidents: the abduction of schoolchildren in Oyo State last May, days after Governor Seyi Makinde declared his 2027 presidential ambition, and the abduction of a seminarian and worshippers from a Catholic church in Enugu State this past Sunday, days after Cardinal John Onaiyekan publicly criticised the Tinubu administration's handling of insecurity and the economy.

 

The conclusion drawn by the post: that those "sponsoring and enabling terrorism in Nigeria are in plain sight" — a direct accusation that the ruling APC is behind both attacks.

Before repeating that conclusion, it's worth separating what is documented from what is speculation.

What actually happened

On May 14, Governor Makinde declared his intention to contest the presidency, unveiling a PDP–APM alliance and accusing the APC of pushing Nigeria toward a one-party state. The following morning, gunmen attacked three schools in Oriire LGA, Oyo State, abducting dozens of pupils and teachers and killing a mathematics teacher. The victims spent 56 days in captivity before being rescued in July, with eight suspects arrested and handed to the DSS.

In late July, Cardinal Onaiyekan told Arise TV that President Tinubu had rejected the Catholic bishops' assessment of the country's economic and security situation during a meeting at the Villa, and that the presidency was growing intolerant of dissent. The remarks drew a sharp response from presidential aides, which in turn drew condemnation from opposition figures, including Atiku Abubakar. Days later, on Sunday, gunmen stormed St. Joseph Catholic Church in Inoyi, Affa, Udi LGA, during morning Mass, abducting a seminarian, a catechist, and other worshippers. The catechist and one other victim were later freed by security operatives; the seminarian and one other remain in captivity as of this writing.

What that does — and doesn't — prove

The timing in both cases is genuinely striking, and Nigerians are right to find it unsettling. But timing alone is not evidence of sponsorship. Nigeria's kidnapping and banditry crisis is chronic and nationwide, striking communities with no political news cycle attached to them at all — the same period has seen mass abductions in Zamfara and elsewhere, tied to criminal economics, not political messaging. Attributing every attack that follows a political event to a conspiracy risks trivialising a security failure that predates this administration and has outlasted several before it.

That said, dismissing the pattern outright would be its own kind of dishonesty. Two things can be true at once: there may be no coordinated sponsorship behind these attacks, and the government's security architecture may still be failing badly enough that critics, opposition figures, and their communities keep paying the price — whether by design or by neglect.

What should actually be demanded

Not a slogan, but an answer: a transparent, independent accounting of both investigations — who carried out these attacks, what their motive and backing actually was, and why regions housing the government's most visible critics keep finding themselves in the crosshairs of Nigeria's security failures. If it is coincidence, the investigations should be able to show that. If it isn't, Nigerians deserve to know that too. What isn't acceptable, either way, is a government that responds to criticism with insults rather than answers — because a state that cannot tell the difference between a critic and an enemy has already told the public something important about how it sees them.

— Ikoments

Sources: reporting from Punch, Vanguard, Premium Times, Channels TV, The Nation, Tribune, Daily Post, and Legit.ng, August 2026.