Presidency: Don’t Compare Adelabu Family Kidnap to Ogbomoso School Abductions

MOUTHPIECE NGR reports that the Presidency has cautioned against comparing the recent kidnapping of former Power Minister Adebayo Adelabu’s relatives to the abduction of schoolchildren and teachers in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, saying the cases involve different motives and require different approaches.

In a statement on Sunday, Temitope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Publicity, said “the motivations and agendas behind the two kidnapping incidents are entirely different.”

Ajayi said urban kidnappers seeking ransom were behind the Adelabu family case, while “a band of terrorists operating deep inside the bush” was responsible for the Ogbomoso abductions in Orire Local Government Area.

He was responding to calls for the government to rescue the schoolchildren as swiftly as Adelabu’s sister and her twin sons were freed.

“The government and security agencies are not being selective, as claimed in some quarters. Those who are comparing the Adelabu’s sister and her twins situation to the Ogbomoso kids and their teachers are totally wrong”, he said. 

He added: “It is wrong to compare the urban gang of kidnappers who engage in copycat crime to make money and hide victims inside a flat within the community to a band of terrorists operating deep inside the bush. The two sets of criminals have different motivations and agendas.”

Ajayi, however, assured that the abducted children and teachers “will be rescued very soon,” noting that the approach to the two incidents “can’t be the same.”

“We should be happy that the woman and her twins are safely home while we pray for quicker rescue of those still in the bush with their abductors,” he wrote on X.