By Kunle Akogun
Never in the macabre history of the serial bandit attacks in Kwara State, especially in Kwara South, had world attention been massively focused on a single incident like the one of 28th September, 2025.
On that ‘ojo buruku esu gb’omi mu’ (a sad day when the devil had a field day), residents of Oke-Ode community, a town that had always prided itself as the ultimate city of refuge for displaced people from its ravaged surrounding villages, woke up to the blistering staccato sounds of gun shots from the direction of the City Gate. Everyone ran helter-skelter. Women and children locked themselves up in their homes. And before the people could come to terms with the reality of what had hit them, about 15 people, mostly operatives of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria and local hunters, as well as some civilian residents, including a village head, the Baale of Ogba Ayo Quarters, were lying in the pools of their own blood. Stone dead! Five individuals were also abducted by the agents of the devil.
The famed impregnability of the town had been violated, demystified. The marauding bandits had finally hit a target they had for ever longed for.
Then an unprecedented media blitzkrieg, an equivalent of warfare by other means, was launched and this instantly brought the matter to the front burner of national discourse.
Traditional and social media were awash with stories and pictures of the sad incident. Sundry media houses invariably competed to outdo themselves in churning out follow-up reports, as Oke-Ode became a veritable source of human interest stories.
To be sure, those bandits have murdered sleep and they would sleep no more! They have literally stepped on the proverbial cobra’s well fortified head and they should be prepared for multiple bites from the poisonous reptile! Oke-Ode is not like other areas they had attacked in the past.
Yours sincerely is proud to be actively involved in the coordination of that deliberate and intentional media war, whose success rate could be measured by the magnitude of attention it drew to the hitherto sleepy community.
The Pen is, indeed, mighty! That media campaign succeeded in drawing the attention of the Federal and State governments to the Oke-Ode axis, first with the initial deployment of a detachment of military personnel to the area and now the establishment of an Army Brigade in nearby Babanla, a community that had also suffered serial bandit attacks in the past. Babanla is the closest community to the notorious Babasango Forest.
Our well-coordinated media blitzkrieg also caught the attention of the two chambers of the National Assembly, the Senate and House of Representatives, which, in quick succession, passed separate motions calling on the nation’s military high command to establish serious military presence in the area, with a view to eventually storming the Babasango Forest to flush the bandits out of their hideout.
More importantly, the massive media onslaught nudged the two representatives of the area at the National Assembly, Senator Lola Ashiru, and Rep. Ismaila Tijani, to wake up from their slumber and take responsibility, for the very first time, for a section of the people they both claim to be representing!
Such is the power of the media. May God continue to bless the pen pushers who deploy their sacred tool positively in the defense of and advocacy for the safety and wellness of humanity.
It is hoped that the Oke-Ode incident, which has finally turned governmental attention to the area, would put an end to banditry in that axis, Ifelodun Local Government Area, Kwara South, and the entire state.
Akogun is the National PRO of the Oke-Ode Community Development Association (OCDA)
