The lawmaker representing Edo North in the Senate, Adams Oshiomhole, on Tuesday said Governor Seyi Makinde’s call for the United Nations to investigate the abduction of the Oyo State pupils and teachers  rescued on Friday is politics taken too far and “downplays the achievements” of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

Mr Oshiomhole during plenary on Tuesday criticised Mr Makinde’s call for a probe into the circumstances surrounding the 39 pupils and seven teachers kidnapped on May 15 in three schools in the Oriire Local Government Area of the state.

Two of the teachers were later killed by the terrorists in captivity.

“I read that Governor Seyi Makinde is calling on the UN to investigate the overall circumstances surrounding the kidnapping. I thought that was unstatesmanlike. He was carrying partisan politics too far, and such an act should be condemned. Nigeria is a sovereign nation,” Mr Oshiomhole said.

The All Progressives Congress chieftain described the release of the schoolchildren without the payment of ransom as an achievement of the Tinubu government, which Mr Makinde was downplaying with his call for a probe.

“This is one case in which our armed forces succeeded without paying ransom. To trivialise it, to suggest, as the Governor of Oyo State seems to have done, that there is something that is not open and the UN needs to unearth the circumstances is to question the sovereignty of our nation and the achievement of our Commander-in-Chief, President Bola Tinubu, the service chiefs, and everyone involved in this process,” Mr Oshiomhole said.

Shortly after the release of the schoolchildren and their teachers on Monday, Mr Makinde held a press conference in which he called on international bodies, including the UN, to investigate the abduction of schoolchildren and teachers to establish the truth, the identify lapses that occurred during the incident, and prevent a recurrence.

“The circumstances surrounding this incident are sufficiently grey and unusual to warrant independent scrutiny beyond our domestic institutions,” Mr Makinde said.

He added, “I therefore, with a full sense of responsibility, as the Executive Governor of Oyo State, call on the international human rights and accountability mechanisms, including those within the United Nations system, to closely examine the facts surrounding this abduction and the circumstances of its resolution.”