Senator for Oyo North, Abdulfatai Buhari has disclosed how the armed gunmen that abducted 46 schoolchildren and teachers from schools in Yawota and Esiele communities in Oriire LGA of Oyo State carried out surveillance before launching the attack on May 15.
He said their activities left telltale signs that could have helped the authorities nip the attack in the bud if reported.
The senator spoke as a guest on a news and current affairs programme on Arise TV on Thursday night.
“Look at this school, for instance, in that Esiele and Yawota. Their first stop was Yawota and they chose nine students.
“From Yawota to Esiele is about five to eight minutes drive and then they came to Esiele to pick the remaining students and teachers. One of the teachers was trying to get out through the window. He’d been shot at.
Another person, not even a teacher, just an okada rider. He was dropping somebody from Yawota to Esiele and they think he was chasing them. He was shot.
“The location of the schools affected in remote rural communities makes them highly susceptible to attacks,” the senator said.
Now back to the (Safer) Schools Initiative; most of the time schools in the rural areas are always about three, four classrooms. It’s a very remote area,” he said.
Buhari narrated how it was possible that strange business activities might have been a pointer to the criminal elements in the area.
‘There is a woman selling beans and bread two days before the strike,’ he said. Her take-home is normally maybe N1,000, N1,200.
“But she was making N10,000, N15,000, N20,000 for the two days before the strike. “Maybe there is a market boom and instead of reporting it to Baale (traditional ruler) or any of the teachers that some certain people come here to buy, she thought it was her business booming or they are building certain things around that area,” he said.
The attackers were amassing information as a prelude to the attack, said the senator.
“Unfortunately, it turned out that those people were doing what they call surveillance, so when they struck two days later, they realized the people buying beans and bread worth N10,000, N15,000, this is their intention. Sometimes information is also very important,” Buhari said.
