Following the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) confirmation that Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS) terrorists were behind the recent school abductions in Oyo State, fresh concerns have emerged over what security experts describe as a dangerous convergence of terrorism and kidnapping in Nigeria’s South-West.
The warning comes amid national outrage over the gruesome beheading of Michael Oyedokun, a mathematics teacher abducted during the attack on schools in Ogbomoso, an act analysts say bears the hallmarks of terror tactics long associated with extremist groups operating in the North-East.
For years, kidnapping in the South-West was largely viewed as a criminal enterprise driven by financial gain. Today, however, security specialists say the Oyo incident raises troubling questions about whether extremist elements displaced from the North-East are beginning to establish footholds in other regions.
Alarming revelation
The DHQ stirred widespread concern when it disclosed that fighters involved in the Oyo school abductions were linked to JAS, one of the deadliest factions to emerge from the Boko Haram insurgency.
Director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Michael Onoja, said intelligence and operational findings linked the attack to JAS terrorists who had been forced out of their enclaves in the North-East by sustained military operations.
According to him, the terrorists involved in the Oyo operation were among insurgent elements displaced from their traditional bases and seeking new areas in which to operate.
“The recent incidence of kidnap in Oyo State was clearly perpetrated by terrorists of the JAS Group that have been dislodged from other parts of the country due to high-intensity operations being conducted all over,” Kangye had said in a statement.
The military spokesman noted that continued pressure on terrorist groups had fragmented many of their camps, forcing some fighters to migrate into forests and remote locations outside their former areas of influence.
Security experts say the revelation is significant because it suggests that the threat facing the South-West may no longer be limited to conventional kidnapping gangs.
Who are JAS terrorists?
JAS, formally known as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, traces its roots to the movement founded by Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri in the early 2000s.
The group became notorious for its violent opposition to Western education, democracy and secular governance. Although Boko Haram is the name most Nigerians recognise, JAS represents one of the factions that emerged after years of military pressure, leadership disputes and ideological divisions within the insurgency.
Following the death of Abubakar Shekau, one of the group’s most feared leaders, JAS splintered further but retained its reputation for extreme brutality.
Its history includes mass killings, suicide bombings, village massacres, attacks on schools and large-scale abductions.
The 2014 kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok remains one of the most infamous terrorist operations in modern African history.
Analysts note that the beheading of Oyedokun (abducted Oyo teacher) bears similarities to tactics employed by JAS and other extremist groups, where violence is used not only to eliminate victims but also to create fear and attract attention.
Security analyst and kidnap incident management specialist, Sam Otoboeze, believes the Oyo attack bears characteristics that go beyond conventional kidnapping.
“What this reveals is that kidnapping in Nigeria is no longer merely a ransom business. It increasingly overlaps with terrorism, banditry, cult violence, political intimidation, revenge attacks and organised criminal financing”, he said.
Why schools are targets
Experts note that schools hold both symbolic and strategic value for extremist groups such as JAS. The group’s ideology regards Western education as illegitimate, making educational institutions natural targets. School attacks also attract widespread publicity, generate panic and create leverage for ransom negotiations. According to security analysts, they send a message that government authority cannot guarantee the safety of children even in classrooms.
Why the South-West?
Security experts point to geography. Large forest belts stretching across Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Ogun and neighbouring Kwara State have increasingly become hideouts for criminal gangs.
The Oke-Ogun axis of Oyo shares proximity with forest corridors connecting several states and creating opportunities for armed groups seeking refuge from security operations.
A forensic and criminal intelligence specialist, Alfred Ononugbo, warned that many kidnapping gangs now operate within fluid networks that can easily absorb new actors.
“When our control systems collapse and policing does not effectively manage these developments, criminals operate with absolute impunity,” he said.
A region under siege
The Oyo school abduction is part of a wider pattern of increasingly brazen kidnappings across the South-West and adjoining states, fuelling fears that criminal and extremist networks are expanding beyond their traditional strongholds.
The most alarming case remains the May 15 attack on schools in Orire Local Government Area of Oyo State.
Armed men invaded schools in the Ahoro-Esiele axis, abducting 49 persons, including pupils, teachers and a toddler. Three victims were reportedly shot during the attack, while Oyedokun was later beheaded by his captors.
Weeks after the incident, about 45 victims were still believed to be in captivity.
The attack generated national outrage, prompting motions in both chambers of the National Assembly calling for urgent federal intervention.
Parents of the abducted children publicly rejected relief materials and cash assistance from government officials, insisting that their priority was the safe return of their children.
The South-West chapter of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools threatened protests if the victims were not rescued.
Only days later, another high-profile kidnapping underscored the growing reach of criminal gangs in Oyo State.
The sister and two nephews of former Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, were abducted, a development lawmakers cited as evidence that kidnappers were no longer restricting their operations to remote rural communities.
Earlier in January, five personnel of the National Park Service were killed around Old Oyo National Park in Orire Local Government Area.
Security agencies have repeatedly identified forests surrounding the park as important transit routes and safe havens for criminal gangs operating across state boundaries.
In neighbouring Ekiti State, kidnappers seized 16 residents, mostly women and children, including toddlers and an elderly woman in her eighties.
The victims have reportedly spent more than 36 days in captivity.
Community leaders said residents raised ¦ 10.5 million alongside food supplies, fuel and cigarettes demanded by the abductors, only for the kidnappers to reject the offer and increase their demand to ¦ 50 million.
Reports indicated that negotiations stretched across forests linking Kwara and Kogi states. Ondo State has witnessed similar incidents.
One case that attracted widespread attention involved the abduction of a medical doctor and his younger brother. While the doctor survived after a traumatic ordeal, his brother was reportedly killed by the kidnappers.
The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, later cited the incident as evidence of the worsening security situation across the region.
Even neighbouring Kwara State, often regarded as a gateway between the North and the South-West, has recorded mass abductions on a scale rarely seen before.
In Adanla community, Igbaja, nine residents, including a five-year-old girl, were abducted during a raid that attracted a ransom demand of ¦ 300 million.
An even more shocking incident occurred in Woro community, Kaiama Local Government Area, where 176 residents, mostly women and children, were reportedly abducted.
More than 50 days later, many families had reportedly received neither proof of life nor direct communication from the captors.
Security analysts believe these incidents reveal more than a routine rise in crime. According to intelligence assessments, criminal groups are increasingly exploiting forest corridors connecting Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara and Kogi states.
These vast, poorly governed spaces provide ideal hideouts for kidnappers, bandits and potentially displaced insurgent elements seeking new operational bases.
SBM Intelligence, in one of its early 2026 security assessments, described the first week of January as a period of “significant escalation”, warning that armed groups appeared to be pushing further south from their traditional zones of operation.
The report identified Oyo as a strategic buffer state because of its location between the North and the commercial centres of Lagos and Ogun.
Afenifere has similarly warned that the frequency of attacks in Oyo, Ondo and Ekiti points to an emerging regional threat that can no longer be dismissed as isolated criminality.
For many security experts, it is this broader pattern that makes the DHQ’s identification of JAS elements in the Oyo school attacks particularly troubling.
Why beheading matters
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Oyo incident was not the abduction itself but the execution of one of the victims and the subsequent circulation of footage showing the killing.
Psychiatrists, psychologists and security experts say such actions are intended to achieve maximum psychological impact.
Dr Sunday Amosu, Consultant Psychiatrist at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Aro, Abeokuta, described the act as a deliberate display of dominance.
“The motive is power has shifted in our favour and we will exercise it. Who can question us? Execution, killing, decapitation, whatever name we call it, is a show of power,” he said
According to him, ordinary killings no longer generate the level of fear and publicity many criminal groups seek. “Those who behead believe that if they just kill the victim, it will not generate the expected and required uproar, sensational reportage and public outcry.”
Clinical psychologist, Hauwa Bello, agreed.
“When people do such things, it’s because they want maximum impact. They want to send a tough message.
“That’s why you call them terrorists because they want to terrorise people. And how do you terrorise people? It’s by doing something that is extreme.”
From kidnapping to terrorism
Criminal psychologist, Dr Ahmed Tanimu Mahmoud, believes the Oyo killing reflects a broader transformation. “The desire to create fear and terror within communities to strengthen their reputation is one of their aims,” he said.
He blamed a combination of weak leadership, drug abuse, extremist indoctrination and poor accountability. “There are some kidnappers even motivated by politicians, extremists and ideological reasons beyond money alone.”
Otoboeze, for his part, warned that the distinction between kidnappers and terrorists is becoming increasingly difficult to draw.
“In more organised criminal environments, kidnappers do not usually set out to kill victims after ransom payment because the primary objective is financial gain”, he said.
“However, victims may still be killed because of fear of identification and exposure, pressure from advancing security operations, internal disorder within the gang, or because the abduction was never purely financially motivated in the first place.”
According to him, kidnapping in Nigeria has evolved into a sophisticated criminal economy where ransom collection is sometimes only one component of a broader agenda.
A warning sign
For many analysts, the most troubling aspect of the Oyo school attacks is not the number of victims or even the brutality displayed by the kidnappers, but the DHQ’s assessment that JAS terrorists were involved.
If the military’s findings are correct, experts warn that Nigeria may be witnessing the early stages of a security shift in which insurgents displaced from the North-East increasingly embed themselves within kidnapping networks operating across the South-West.
The beheading of a school teacher, the targeting of educational institutions and the exploitation of vast forest corridors stretching across Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti and neighbouring states are, in the view of security experts, warning signs that the country must confront quickly before a regional kidnapping crisis evolves into a broader insurgency threat.
@Vanguard
