Pastor arrested in connection with oyo kidnappings.

The Oyo State Security Forces say that they have arrested a local pastor suspected of being a key logistic supplier to the armed groups responsible for the mass abduction of school children and teachers in the Oyo State area. The pastor is alleged to have provided weapons, ammunition, drugs, logistics and cover to the bandits who walked into Oyo State and took children and teachers, human beings with families waiting for them at home. And his collar, the same symbol of his calling, was reportedly what got him through checkpoints. The very thing to mark him as a man of peace became his camouflage for evil. Now, I want us to sit with that for a moment because what I'm about to say next requires you to be completely honest with yourself. You see, every time bandits strike, especially in the north, and God knows they strike too often, a certain conversation follows almost immediately. Before the dust settles, before the families have, you know, finished crying, before the children are even home, the narrative machine turns on. It's those people, it's that religion, it's that tribe. They do. Other side, you hear, not all of us. Stop stereotyping. Don't paint us all with the same brush. Both sides dig in, both sides get louder. And somewhere in that noise, the actual criminals, the actual networks, the actual ecosystem that made the crime possible, quietly continue their business undisturbed, almost grateful for the distraction. Because here's what most people screaming on social media don't understand or actually refuse to understand. Bandits do not descend from the sky. They don't arrive in your community with the perfect intelligence, perfect routes, perfect timing by accident. They know which road the school bus takes. They know which checkpoint is understaffed at what time. Which community leader looks the other way. Which businessman would buy, you know, stolen goods. Which gate man leaves the side entrance unlocked? They know because somebody told them. And that somebody is almost never a stranger. Every major criminal network in Nigeria, every single one, runs on local collaboration. And this is not an opinion. This is how crime works everywhere, and Nigeria is not an exception. The bandits in the Northwest have local informants. People from those very communities who know the terrain, know the people, know the vulnerabilities and sell that knowledge for money. The cultists in the South, you know, East, have community members who know exactly who is being targeted and say nothing. The oil thieves in the Niger Delta have insiders, you know, in the very companies being robbed. The fraudsters in Lagos have bankers, lawyers and business people who clean the money after it's taken. Every criminal ecosystem has a local heartbeat. Always. And that local heartbeat wears many faces. Sometimes it wears a caftan, sometimes a suit, sometimes a uniform. And sometimes as it showed us, it wears a clerical collar. Because evil has never been loyal to any religion. Evil is loyal to one thing only. Money. This pastor, if these allegations are proven, did not do this for Jesus. He did not do this for any theology or any scripture. For the same reason, every collaborator in every criminal network does. Because someone puts enough money in front of him that his conscience went quiet. Guard your calling. Because the collar that got him through checkpoints will not get him through judgement. And to the rest of us, the children taken in Oyo are still someone's everything. Every single morning, their parents wake up, you know, and the first thing, the thought is whether they are alive, whether they are cold, whether they are coming home. Those parents don't need us, the right side of a Twitter argument. They need us to be the kind of society that makes this harder to happen, not easier. Crime has no religion. Crime has no tribe. But it has one consistent ingredient everywhere it thrives. Our willingness. Other way when it doesn't touch us directly. The real question this moment is asking every single one of us is not, which group do you belong to? It is simpler and very, very hard. When evil is standing right in front of you, what will you do? Because in Nigeria today, looking the other way is not neutrality. Looking the other way is a choice. And every choice has a consequence. This is Mister. This is Mister Abdul Riat. The politicians who steal public funds build a mansion, get a chieftaincy title in his village. The businessman who enables crime gets contract and invitations to state dinners. The community leader who looks the other way gets taken care of and lives comfortably while his neighbours suffer. When crime is this profitable and consequence is this rare, it will recruit across every boundary, every tribe, every religion and every profession, every colour. The poverty that makes a young man pick up a gun rather than die slowly without one. The corruption that allows weapons to flow into communities like water. The weak institutions that cannot protect a school full of children in broad daylight. The moral decay that turns a shepherd into a wolf. These are the real enemies. Not the Hausa's, not the Fulani's, not the Yoruba's, not Christians, and definitely not Muslims. The enemy is the broken system that makes evil not just possible, but logical and profitable. Now, I want to say something that every religious leader watching this should take note. Your position is not a costume. It is not a business strategy. It is not a checkpoint pass. People bring you their broken children, their dying marriages, their last hopes, and they trust you with it. If you trade that trust for blood money, there is no betrayal more complete. You don't just destroy yourself. You destroy the faith of every person who ever believed in something bigger because of you. Guard your calling. Because the collar that got him through checkpoints will not get him through judgement. And to the rest of us, the children taken in Oyo are still someone's everything. Every single morning, their parents wake up, you know, and the first thing, the thought is whether they are alive, whether they are cold, whether they are coming home. Those parents don't need us, the right side of a Twitter argument. They need us to be the kind of society that makes this harder to happen, not easier. Crime has no religion. Crime has no tribe. But it has one consistent ingredient everywhere it thrives. Our willingness. Other way when it doesn't touch us directly. The real question this moment is asking every single one of us is not, which group do you belong to? It is simpler and very, very hard. When evil is standing right in front of you, what will you do? Because in Nigeria today, looking the other way is not neutrality. Looking the other way is a choice. And every choice has a consequence. This is Mister. This is Mister Abdul Riat.