Osun Governor Revives Safe School Initiative After Oyo Abductions

Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke has ordered the immediate revival of the state’s Safe School Initiative, days after gunmen abducted students and teachers from schools in neighbouring Oyo State.

The directive, issued Sunday through Adeleke’s spokesman Mallam Olawale Rasheed, came four days after armed men stormed three schools in Oyo’s Oriire Local Government Area on Thursday, May 15. The attacks have rattled governors across the southwest, with Adeleke moving first to visibly reinforce school security in Osun.

What Adeleke Ordered

The governor directed the Ministry of Education and relevant security agencies to urgently reactivate and strengthen school protection structures across Osun — with a focus on rural schools and communities that border other states.

Intelligence gathering around remote and border-area schools must be “intensified immediately,” the statement said. Adeleke also specifically directed the Osun Amotekun Corps to deepen its partnerships with non-governmental organisations already providing security support to schools in the state.

“In the wake of recent school kidnappings in Oyo State, Governor Ademola Adeleke has ordered immediate revitalization of the Safe School Initiative by the Ministry of Education and other relevant government and security agencies,” the statement read.

The governor’s Special Adviser on Security Matters was also tasked with coordinating heads of security agencies to implement the new security strategy.

The Oyo Attacks That Triggered the Response

Gunmen hit three schools in Oriire LGA on the morning of Thursday, May 15. The number of children and teachers taken in Oyo has not been officially confirmed, though total abduction figures across Oyo and Borno, where a simultaneous attack occurred, stand at 87.

The Oyo attacks are unusual. Southwest Nigeria has generally been spared the mass school abductions that have plagued the North. The Oriire incident broke that pattern, and state governments in the region are now recalculating their exposure.

The Safe School Initiative — What It Is

The Safe School Initiative was launched nationally in 2014 following the Chibok abductions, with the goal of hardening schools against attack and creating early warning systems for communities near schools. Implementation has been uneven across states, and many governors allowed the programme to go dormant after years without significant attacks in their states.

Adeleke’s directive to “revitalize” rather than merely strengthen the initiative suggests Osun’s version had fallen inactive. That the Oyo attack was enough to restart it says something about both the severity of what happened next door and how unprepared most states remained.

Pressure on Every Neighbouring Governor

Osun shares a border with Oyo. Its rural communities, especially in the north of the state, are not far from the area where Friday’s attack happened. Adeleke’s response is defensive but also political — no governor wants to be the one whose state suffers the next attack after being warned.

The broader national conversation has quickly shifted to state police. Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele said on Sunday that the Borno and Oyo abductions had hardened the National Assembly’s resolve to fast-track state police legislation. Whether states like Osun will get more control over local security forces, or simply be left to improvise with Amotekun and NGO partnerships, remains to be seen.

Sources: Sahara Reporters, Premium Times, Washington Post