Her name is Rachael Alamu. She is the principal of Community High School, Ahoro-Esinle in Oyo State. She has been in captivity for 25 days. And on Monday, she looked into a camera and spoke directly to Nigeria.
She spoke with the calm of someone who knew her words might be the last ones that mattered, and she chose them carefully.
First, she set the record straight. The rumours circulating on social media about what the kidnappers were demanding were wrong, she said. There was no demand for Sharia law. No ransom. No weapons. The abductors, according to Alamu, want certain people released from correctional facilities. A prisoner exchange, not the religious or money ultimatum the public had been debating for weeks.
Then she made her appeal. She asked authorities not to play politics with the lives of the people being held alongside her. She asked for dialogue. She asked for urgent action. And in doing so, she became the clearest, most human voice in a crisis that the government has handled with a notable silence and delay..
Among those abducted with her on May 15 are 39 pupils and students, some as young as two years old, alongside seven teachers. One teacher, mathematics instructor Michael Oyedokun, was reportedly killed while in captivity. Another was killed during the initial attack. These are not statistics. They’re people who left for school on a normal morning and haven’t returned.
The video of Alamu speaking from captivity prompted social media critic VDM to make a direct public appeal to President Tinubu and the service chiefs, urging them to consider the kidnappers’ demand and prioritise the safe return of the victims. He is not a government officialnor does he have any negotiating authority. But with no similar statement of urgency coming from those who do, his post carried the weight of someone stepping into an empty vacuum.
Twenty-five days is a long time to be a child hidden in the bush. It is a long time to be a teacher wondering if your family has given up. It is a long time for a principal to hold herself together in front of the pupils she is responsible for, appearing on camera to speak truth to a country that has spent three weeks arguing about everything except what she actually needs.
Rachael Alamu asked Nigeria not to play politics with her life.
The real question now is whether anyone with the power to act is actually hearing her.
