The Oyo State Police Command has arrested six suspects and local informants who were tracked via telephone conversations with the bandits responsible for the Ahoro-Esiele, Oriire Local Government Area school abductions. However, official security reports indicate that none of the main bandits inside the forest have been arrested yet, as they continue to evade direct tracking using advanced call-routing technology.
The specific details regarding the identified accomplices, the tracked phone calls, and the financial institutions involved are outlined below.
Arrested Informants and Couriers
According to official statements from the Oyo State Police Command, the tracked individuals were not the core bandits themselves, but rather local logistics providers, couriers, and informants:
Babangida Buhari Awalu & Kabiru Aliyu:
Both worked as commercial motorcyclists (Okada riders). They acted as couriers for the kidnap syndicate and were apprehended in the Ojoo Area of Ibadan while attempting to retrieve “exchange money” (ransom) for the bandits.
Adewuyi Sunday, Ayanwola Gbenga, & Rafiu Abdulmajeed: Arrested during follow-up investigations. They are from the Gbugbu area of Kwara State and Ago-Are in Oyo State.
Adeleye Ayomide: A student from a nearby university who was tracked down by military personnel. He was apprehended after being caught with a victim’s phone. The email demands sent to the parents were traced directly to his device.
Note: Official security agencies have not released specific residential addresses for these suspects beyond their general local government origins and arrest locations due to ongoing prosecution and state security protocols.
The Phone Tracking and SIM Technology Gap
The Oyo State Police Public Relations Officer noted that investigators intercepted phone calls made during and after the school raid. The conversations exposed how local informants were giving the bandits step-by-step directions on how to navigate the Old Oyo National Park to evade military borders.
While Nigeria enforces a strict National Identification Number (NIN)-SIM linkage policy, the main bandits bypass this infrastructure.
The Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy explained that these syndicates use specialized call-routing technology and portable network-masking devices to bounce their calls across multiple remote cell towers. This masks their exact geographic coordinates and hides their actual registration details.
Banks and Accounts Involved
During the initial ransom exchanges, investigators discovered that funds extorted from victims’ families were funneled into local bank accounts to be layered and distributed among the syndicate.
Wema Bank: Security reports confirmed that ransom payments and digital extortion funds linked to the tracking of Adeleye Ayomide were routed into a Wema Bank account.
Logistics Accounts: Funds were also transferred to the bank accounts of Adewuyi Sunday, Ayanwola Gbenga, and Rafiu Abdulmajeed. These accounts served as temporary holding points to distribute cash to the forest-bound bandits.
The Central Bank of Nigeria and anti-graft agencies have since frozen the flagged account numbers associated with these names to trace fund movements.
