A teacher who regained freedom after the school abduction in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State, Zachery Olatunde, has addressed speculation surrounding the incident.
He explained that the primary school pupils were dressed in matching native outfits when they were released because they had been kidnapped on a Friday, the day schools set aside for traditional attire.
According to Olatunde, he felt compelled to clear the air after social media users claimed that the children’s coordinated ankara clothing suggested the kidnapping had been staged.
The teacher, who endured 56 days in captivity alongside 43 other victims, made the clarification in a video published by Oyo Matters on Thursday, where he dismissed the allegations as unfounded.
Speaking in Yoruba, with his remarks translated into English, Olatunde explained that the children were still wearing the same clothes they had on when armed men stormed their schools on Friday, May 15.
He said: “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,”
Olatunde also addressed questions from critics who wondered why the victims looked relatively clean despite spending several weeks in captivity. He disclosed that the kidnappers occasionally washed their clothing whenever it became excessively dirty.
Olatunde added: “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?”
He also dismissed suggestions that the kidnapping had been orchestrated, stressing that the loss of lives during the incident clearly demonstrated that the ordeal was real.
He argued: “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,”
Calling on Nigerians to refrain from spreading misinformation, Olatunde appealed to the public to stop promoting what he described as false claims about the abduction.
His words: 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,”
