RUKIYAT OGUNWADE, who was at Oriire Local Government, Oyo State, reports on how the abduction of pupils and teachers in Ahoro-Esiele and Yawota had paralysed the economy of the area.

ONE classroom is littered with abandoned shoes, school bags and exercise books left behind by abducted pupils. In another, a blackboard bears a simple four-word sentence written three times in chalk:

“I will be great.”

It was a lesson in handwriting. A teacher had written the words for the children to copy and recite. They did. They repeated the sentence, traced each letter and perhaps imagined the future it promised.

But those four words have become the last lesson on that blackboard.

The scene is one of the schools attacked by terrorists in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State three weeks ago.

For almost a month now, the children who echoed that “I will be great” declaration, together with some of their teachers, have been held captive by bandits. The classroom has fallen silent. No pupil has returned to complete the lesson. No teacher has returned to erase the board.

A media report on Friday claimed that the terrorists were demanding, among other conditions, the release of arrested Boko Haram commanders in exchange for the children and their teachers. Whether that report is accurate or not, one fact remains undeniable: the pupils are still in captivity while their families wait in anguish and the government struggles for a breakthrough.

Three weeks after gunmen struck those schools in Esiele and Yawota in Oyo State, farms there now lie fallow and markets close early.

The weekly market in Yawota town used to be loud. By 7am, women spread yams and baskets of tomatoes on the bare ground. Motorcycles carried sacks of cassava to waiting lorries. Children ran between stalls with naira notes for biscuits. The noise is gone. Stalls close early, lorries from Ibadan drive through without stopping and hunger has settled into homes that once fed on farm produce.

Oriire Local Government depends on farming. Cassava, yam, maize and cocoa are what keep families fed and send children to school.

Today, most farms are empty.

Olanipekun stares at his acres of cassava behind his house in Ahoro-Esiele. Weeds have taken over. He has not gone there in the last two weeks.

“The bush is where they took the children,” he says, voice low.

“If I go to farm and they are waiting, who will bury me? Who will feed my wife and my two children at home?”

He Is not alone, across Esiele, Yawota and surrounding villages, farmers say they now return home early. Some have not been to their farms at all since the abductions.

Without weeding and harvesting, food is rotting in the fields.

Markets shut down early

In Yawota, the market that once ran till evening now winds down before noon. Shop owners say the reason is not government curfew. It is fear of the road at night.

A 40-year-old woman who sells rice and beans in a small shop near the motor park.

On a good day before the attack, she made about #15000. Now she struggles to make N6,000.

“People are not buying like before,” she says. “Farmers are not bringing food. Those with money are keeping it, because nobody knows what will happen next.”

She has reduced her family meals from three to two per day. The children complain, but there is no money to buy more food.

The impact spreads. The vulcanizer has no customers because motorcycles are not moving farm produce. The barber sits idle. With schools closed and children at home, parents who sold uniforms, books and snacks have lost their customers.

Hunger replaces fear

A resident, Jacob Agnes recounts how the abduction had led to hunger for them, she noted that there have been hunger in Orire since farmers could not go to farm and food sellers in the market fled the community for their safety.

“We have been suffering from a serious hunger since the incident, farmers have left their farms and food sellers who are supposed to sell food to us in the market had fled for their safety, now we have nothing to eat, many of us are still here because our relatives are still in the bush with the bandits”

In a mud house in Esiele, a mother of five stirs pap on a small firewood stove. The pot is small.

“This is for today and tomorrow morning,” she says.

Her husband, a farm labourer, has not worked since the schools were attacked.

“He says he cannot go to farm. If something happens to him, who will take care of us?”

Economy on hold

Oriire has no banks, no factories. Its economy runs on three things, farms, markets, and children in school. All three have stopped.

Teachers have fled, pupils stay home without students, those who sell food, transport, and school materials have no business.

Oriire feeds Oyo and Lagos with cassava and yam, but kidnapping has paralyzed its farms. Supply to Ibadan Market has dropped, prices have doubled, and a local economy built on agriculture is now surviving on fear.

The state government and federal governments, deployed security agencies to the area while reiterating their commitment towards the rescue of the abducted victims.

While there is a presence of patrol vehicles of the the Nigerian Police Force, men of the Nigerian Army are seen in the community.

Residents say they still live in fear despite their presence.

On the road back to Ibadan, the bush is quiet. No farmers with hoes. No women with baskets on their heads. Only lonely farms and closed shops.

The abducted children and teachers are still missing. But the cost of their absence is already being paid in empty market stalls, in smaller pots of food, and in the faces of parents who now count meals instead of profit. (Sunday Tribune)