• Group warns against Yorubaland becoming mass kidnapping hub
• Archbishop seeks profiling of foreigners

The Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), yesterday, condemned the abduction of pupils, students and teachers of Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota; Community Grammar School, Esiele, and L.A. Primary School in Oriire Local Council of Oyo State, describing the attack as a grave assault on education and humanity.

The group also warned that Yorubaland must not be allowed to become a haven or frontier for mass abductions and banditry.

In a statement by its Secretary-General, Oladipo Oyewole, the elders’ council described the coordinated attacks on the schools as “barbaric and unacceptable”.

The YCE said the incident was not only a crime against Oyo State but also an attack on the collective conscience of the nation.

The group, therefore, urged governors in the South-West to deepen inter-state security cooperation and mobilise all available resources to strengthen security across the region.

Similarly, the Archbishop of Ibadan Ecclesiastical Province, Most Rev’d (Dr) Williams Oluwarotimi Aladekugbe, has condemned the abduction.

Aladekugbe, while describing the act as barbaric and uncivilised, also condemned the gruesome, wicked, ungodly and inhuman way one of the abducted teachers was killed.

This condemnation was contained in a statement signed by the Ibadan North Anglican Diocesan Communicator, Ayoade Solomon Olugbemiga, in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

The cleric, who sympathised with the parents of the pupils and families of the teachers abducted, most especially the teacher who was gruesomely murdered, stated: ”The heartfelt sympathy of the Archbishop also goes to the government of Oyo State, Oriire Local Council and the entire people of the state for the traumatic situation we find ourselves.”