Olushola Omogbehin
Following claims on social media channels that the recent kidnapping of pupils and their teachers in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State was staged due to their native ankara dress, Zachery Olatunde, a teacher rescued from the abduction, has explained the reason the pupils were in ankara dress.
She said the primary school pupils were dressed in native attire when they regained freedom because they had been abducted on a Friday, the designated day for traditional wear in schools.
Olatunde revealed this in a video shared by Oyo Matters on Thursday where she dismissed the allegations suggesting that the kidnapping was stages as baseless.
Speifically, she said the pupils were wearing the clothes they had on when the kidnapper invaded their schools on Friday, May 15.
“They said the children were wearing matching ankara. Are they not in Oyo State? Don’t they know that the government has ordered that schoolchildren should be wearing native attires on Friday?
“Primary school pupils in private schools now wear native wears on Friday. We the teachers wore native attire, but secondary school pupils wore school uniform,” he said.
On why the kidnapped people appeared relatively clean after weeks in captivity, she said the abductors occasionally washed their clothes anytime they appeared dirty.
“The abductors are the ones that wash the clothes for us a few times while we were in captivity, when they notice that we are already smelling. Don’t they (critics) see how rough and dirty we the teachers were? Didn’t they see how rough our beards were, like that of a bush rat?” Olatunde said.
Rejecting claims that the abduction was orchestrated, Olatunde argued that the deaths recorded during the ordeal were clear evidence that the incident was genuine.
“Those saying the kidnapping was staged don’t know what they are saying. If it was staged, would they have killed two people? If it was staged, what we went through in that place was not good at all,” he said.
She therefore appealed to Nigerians to stop circulating false narratives about the abduction.
“So those that are saying it was staged are all telling lies. It was not staged. It was real. So please stop saying those types of things,” he said.
On July 10, the Federal Government announced that all the teachers abducted from Community Grammar School, Baptist Nursery and Primary School, and L.A. Primary School in the Esiele and Yawota communities of Oriire Local Government Area had been rescued after spending 56 days in captivity.
