Oby Ezekwesili Urges Tinubu to Share Rescue Plans for Oyo Kidnapped Victims

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Summary: Former Minister of Education and co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement, Oby Ezekwesili, condemned President Bola Tinubu and Nigeria’s political class on Children’s Day.

Former Minister of Education and co-founder of School of Politics, Policy, and Governance, Oby Ezekwesili, issued a public warning to President Bola Tinubu, state governors, the National Assembly, and Nigeria’s entire political class on Children’s Day.

She demanded their silence on a day she described as a National Day of Shame. In a statement published on her X handle on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, she warned the President, state governors, and lawmakers against issuing customary Children’s Day messages, saying it is not a day of celebration but a National Day of Shame. 

Addressing the President, Vice President, governors, members of the National Assembly and state assemblies, she stated that they had abandoned, betrayed, and condemned Nigerian children to suffering. 

“Do not dare open your mouths on May 27 to wish Nigerian children a Happy Children’s Day. Do not dare release the recycled, ghost-written platitudes your media handlers have already drafted,” she stated.

“Do not dare stand in front of cameras, surrounded by carefully arranged children in matching uniforms, to perform a tenderness you have never extended to the millions of Nigerian children you have abandoned, betrayed, and condemned to lives of suffering. You have no moral standing to wish anything to Nigerian children. None,” 

She named a series of school abductions to substantiate her position. She cited the 39 students and 7 teachers seized from schools in Ahoro Esinele community, Oriire district, Oyo State, on May 15, 2026, describing it as a chilling expansion of terror into the southwest. 

She also cited the 25 schoolgirls abducted from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State, on November 18, 2025, most of whom remain missing, following the gunmen who killed the school’s vice principal. 

She named the 303 students and 12 teachers seized from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri, Niger State, on November 21, 2025, whose abduction forced over 20,000 Nigerian schools to close indefinitely, and the 287 students taken from Government Secondary School in Kuriga, Kaduna State, on March 7, 2024.

The former minister also invoked the Chibok girls, over 90 of whom remain missing more than 12 years after their abduction on April 14, 2014, the same crisis that first brought her to global attention. She cited UN World Food Programme estimates that 35 million people could face hunger in Nigeria in 2026, among them millions of children suffering from stunted growth and diminished development as a direct result of governance failure.

She urged the government to provide specific details on efforts being made to rescue abducted children and improve safety in schools, warning that any Children’s Day statement that fails to address insecurity, education, and child welfare amounts to a fresh wound on the badly scarred soul of every Nigerian child