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The Searchlight – Vol. XIX, No. 43 – The Reckoning Edition

Governor Makinde, you have positioned yourself as a pragmatic leader, a technocrat who talks of “Oyo State rising.” But while you campaign for political realignment and attend party primaries, your state has become the South-West’s entry point for jihadist terror.

The Searchlight demands that you answer the following, publicly and under oath if necessary:

1. What did you know, and when? Intelligence reports from the Department of State Services (DSS) and military intelligence have long warned of jihadist infiltration into Oyo, Kwara, and Niger borderlands. Were these reports shared with your office? If yes, what specific actions did you take before the abduction?

2. Where is Amotekun? The Western Nigeria Security Network (Amotekun) was created precisely for threats like this. Yet, during the Oyo abduction, Amotekun was conspicuously absent. How many Amotekun operatives are currently deployed in the affected forests? What is their equipment level? How much of Oyo State’s 2024 security vote has been allocated to them?

3. Will you declare a state of emergency on education security? Not a federal emergency, but a state-level one. This would involve: fortifying every rural school with walls, alarms, and communication devices; training teachers in abduction response; creating a rapid-response forest militia; and mandating that no school within 10 kilometres of a forest reserve operates without military or police outpost. Will you do this? If not, why?

4. Are you willing to be held criminally liable if another abduction occurs? In other nations, leaders are impeached or prosecuted for gross negligence when preventable mass casualties occur. You have survived elections and political manoeuvres. But the blood of that beheaded teacher is on your watch. Will you sign a binding pledge to resign if Oyo records another school abduction within the next 12 months, or will you continue to pass the blame to Abuja?

Governor Makinde, the people of Oyo State are watching. The parents whose children are still in captivity are waiting. Your silence, or your scripted press releases, will be recorded as either leadership or abdication.

AN OPEN CHALLENGE TO PRESIDENT BOLA TINUBU

President Tinubu, you are not new to power. You were the Governor of Lagos State. You are a self-styled strategist. You campaigned on “renewed hope.” But hope is not a security strategy, and renewal cannot happen while terrorists operate freely across multiple states.

The Searchlight challenges you to do the following within 30 days, or publicly explain your failure to do so:

1. Publish the full, audited defence budget expenditure for 2023 and 2024, including all “classified” allocations, to an independent panel of civil society auditors. If there is nothing to hide, hiding should be unnecessary.

2. Fire or prosecute any military or police commander whose jurisdiction has recorded a school abduction and who cannot produce a pre-incident intelligence report and response plan. Accountability must start from the top, not end with the lowest-ranking soldier.

3. Create a Presidential Task Force on School Abductions with a single mandate: rescue all current captives within 14 days, using any necessary force, and publicly identify any political or traditional or cleric found to be harbouring or negotiating with abductors, including naming them in the Federal Gazette.

4. Address the nation honestly. Not a speech. Not a condolence message. A live, unscripted, question-and-answer session with journalists and victims’ families where you answer: Why has Nigeria not defeated these groups? Is it capacity, will, or something more sinister? Nigerians are tired of euphemisms. We want the truth.

5. Call for a parliamentary inquiry into collaboration. Let the National Assembly, with full subpoena powers, investigate allegations that politicians, security personnel, or business interests have funded, armed, or protected non-state armed groups. Any lawmaker who blocks this inquiry should be presumed complicit.

CONCLUSION: THE ABNORMAL MUST BECOME UNACCEPTABLE

The teacher beheaded in Oyo State had a name. The children still in captivity have names. The billions of naira unaccounted for have serial numbers. The politicians planning primaries while the nation burns have faces.

The Searchlight does not claim that Governor Makinde or President Tinubu personally ordered the abduction. But leadership is not about intent, it is about outcome. The outcome of their leadership, thus far, is a Nigeria where armed groups move from region to region with impunity, where schoolchildren are currency, and where the only thing that gets “renewed” is the cycle of condemnation and forgetfulness.

This is our open challenge: Governor Makinde, President Tinubu, meet with the families of the Oyo abductees today. Not next week. Not after the primaries. Today. And present a plan, with timelines and budgets, for rescue and prevention.

If you refuse, Nigerians must draw their own conclusions. And in the tradition of The Searchlight, we will continue to draw them, until the abnormal becomes unacceptable, and the unacceptable becomes the end of your political careers.

We invite readers to send this piece to Governor Makinde’s office, the Presidency, and every member of the National Assembly. Copy us at [thesearchlight@protonmail.com]. Silence is complicity. Speak. Write. Demand.