Oyo Police Fiercely Dismiss Viral Death Claim of Abducted Schoolgirl; Warns Saboteurs Are Weaponizing Fake News to Ruin Rescue Operations

The Oyo State Police Command has stepped firmly into a growing whirlwind of digital misinformation, categorically dismissing a viral online report which claimed that one of the schoolgirls currently held by bandits had died in captivity. Characterizing the publication as a reckless fabrication, the police warned that rogue actors are intentionally weaponizing emotional narratives to destabilize the state.

The sudden public relations crisis erupted on Friday, June 5, 2026, as frantic posts began circulating across various social media platforms, alleging that the harsh conditions in the forest trenches had claimed the life of a young student. The rumor spread rapidly across localized WhatsApp groups and X (formerly Twitter) channels, severely spike-testing the anxiety levels of families whose children were snatched during the devastating May 15 mass school raids in the Oriire Local Government Area near Ogbomoso.

Moving quickly to execute an information damage-control manual, State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Olayinka Ayanlade, issued a blistering press release in Ibadan to dismantle the viral narrative.

“The Oyo State Police Command categorically states that the report is false, misleading, mischievous, and without any factual basis whatsoever,” DSP Ayanlade declared unequivocally. “At no time has the Command, nor any other recognized security agency involved in the ongoing rescue efforts, confirmed such a development. It is particularly disturbing that the authors of this report deliberately employed emotional narratives, speculative claims, and unverified accounts in a calculated attempt to manipulate public opinion and generate anxiety among residents.”

The fake death claim marks the second time in less than 48 hours that the command’s communication portal has been forced to push back against engineered digital propaganda. On Thursday, security agencies had to issue an identical debunking brief after another viral wave falsely claimed that all the pupils and teachers abducted from Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota, and Community High School, Ahoro-Esiele, had successfully broken out or been released by their captors.

Defense experts note that these conflicting, unverified information waves represent a sophisticated script of psychological warfare. By alternating between false hope (fake releases) and extreme trauma (fake deaths), the networks behind these posts are systematically attempting to exhaust public patience, inflame grassroots anger against Governor Seyi Makinde’s administration, and force tactical squads into making premature, reactive operational blunders.

Reaffirming that the state’s defensive shield remains unyielding, the police high command urged the public and mainstream media houses to rely strictly on official data released through authorized security channels.

Assuring the despondent Ogbomoso communities that the elite rescue squads and the newly approved 1,000 localized forest guards are maintaining an intense, active dragnet inside the forest borders, the command maintained that all available operational and human resources are being deployed to neutralize the syndicate and guarantee that every single student is safely brought home alive.