By Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D
After fifty-seven agonising days in captivity, the pupils, teachers and other staff of Oriire Community High School, Oyo State, have finally regained their freedom.
For their parents, relatives and loved ones, it is the end of weeks of anxious prayers, sleepless nights and emotional torment. For the nation, it is a welcome reminder that despite enormous security challenges, Nigeria’s security agencies remain capable of delivering intelligence-driven operations that save lives.
Those who participated in the operation deserve commendation. The Department of State Services, the Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Police Force, and every other agency involved demonstrated once again that professionalism, inter-agency collaboration, patience and credible intelligence remain potent weapons against organised criminality.
While Nigerians await the official figure of the security operatives who reportedly paid the supreme price during the rescue, we must pause to acknowledge them as the true heroes of the Oriire operation.
The rescued pupils, teachers and staff have returned to the embrace of their families. These brave men never will. Their sacrifice made someone else’s joy possible, the greatest expression of patriotism there is.
As we celebrate the operation’s success, we must remember the families bearing the burden of that sacrifice: a grieving spouse, children who may grow up without a parent, ageing parents who have lost a son, and loved ones whose lives have been permanently altered in service of their country.
The government must not allow these families to become forgotten casualties of the operation. They deserve prompt payment of every entitlement, sustained welfare support, educational assistance for their children, and professional grief counselling. Trauma does not affect only those rescued from captivity; it also visits the homes of those who never returned.
Reports indicate that more than twenty of the kidnappers were neutralised during the operation, while eight others were arrested alive.
Indeed, one reason the Oriire operation has inspired greater public confidence than many previous kidnapping cases is that it bears the hallmarks of a genuine rescue: intelligence gathering, operational planning, direct engagement with the kidnappers, casualties among the criminal elements, arrests, and now suspects who can be investigated, prosecuted and, where guilt is established, convicted by the courts.
That marks a departure. In recent years, many Nigerians have questioned announcements describing victims as rescued when little was disclosed about the operation or the abductors’ fate, with no arrests, no casualties among the kidnappers and no visible prosecutions, fuelling public scepticism. The Oriire operation appears markedly different.
But the operation is only half complete. Justice must now finish what the rescue began. The eight suspects in custody should be swiftly investigated and prosecuted, and, where guilt is established beyond reasonable doubt, the courts should impose the full sanctions prescribed by law. Nothing strengthens deterrence more than the certainty that those who abduct innocent schoolchildren will face swift justice. Criminals learn from outcomes, and so does society.
The rescue deserves celebration, but only to a point: every successful rescue should also compel us to confront a harder question. Why did innocent schoolchildren, their teachers and other staff have to spend fifty-seven days in captivity in the first place? That is the question Nigeria must answer.
The danger we face as a nation is that we have become so accustomed to insecurity that we now celebrate the restoration of what should never have been taken away. Children are kidnapped, and communities rejoice when they are rescued. Travellers are abducted, and families celebrate when they eventually return home. Communities are attacked, and we applaud when security forces recover territory.
These are victories. But they are victories achieved after painful losses. A rescue, no matter how successful, does not erase the trauma of captivity. It does not restore lost weeks of education, nor fully heal the psychological wounds inflicted on children who should have been worrying about homework and friendships rather than survival. Nor does it erase the scars borne by parents who lived each day uncertain whether their children would return alive.
In celebrating the pupils’ return, we must not overlook the teachers and other staff who endured the same ordeal. They, too, were victims, and many carried an even heavier burden. While struggling with their own fears, they became surrogate parents, counsellors and protectors to frightened children, offering reassurance they themselves needed, and keeping hope alive under circumstances no educator should be called upon to endure. Their quiet courage deserves equal recognition.
Rescue, however, is not recovery, and freedom from captivity does not automatically translate into freedom from trauma. Fifty-seven days in captivity are enough to leave profound psychological scars. Some pupils, teachers, staff and parents may continue to suffer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, nightmares and emotional distress long after public attention has moved on.
The government should ensure that professional trauma counselling, psychological rehabilitation, and long-term mental health support are integral to every rescue operation. Healing the mind is just as important as freeing the body.
Nigeria must also redefine what success looks like: not merely the number of hostages rescued, but the number of kidnappings prevented. The highest achievement of any security architecture is not its ability to respond after tragedy strikes, but its ability to ensure tragedy never occurs.
Long before the first gunshot is fired, someone usually knows something. Someone notices unfamiliar faces, hears suspicious conversations, or observes unusual movements. Someone knows. The challenge is converting that scattered information into actionable intelligence before criminals strike.
The pupils and teachers of Oriire have come home, and for that, Nigeria should be grateful.
The security agencies, the fallen, and their families all deserve Nigeria’s enduring gratitude.
Justice must follow rescue. Healing must follow freedom. Honour must follow sacrifice. And prevention must replace rescue.
The greatest tribute we can pay the pupils, teachers, staff and the gallant operatives who gave everything is to build a Nigeria where no child leaves home for school only to end up in a kidnappers’ camp. No family pays the ultimate price to restore an innocence that should never have been stolen.
That is the victory that truly matters.
*Lemmy Ughegbe, FIMC, CMC
lemmyughegbeofficial@gmail.com
