Tension has gripped the Ikoyi-Ile community in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State following the discovery of handwritten notes attributed to suspected bandits, warning of an impending attack scheduled for January 20, 2026. The development comes just days after a violent assault in the same local government area claimed the lives of five National Park Service officers.
The Oyo State Police Command confirmed on Saturday, January 10, that it has launched a comprehensive investigation into the origin and authenticity of the messages. According to residents and police reports, two separate notes were found strategically placed at the front and rear of a residential building in the town.
One of the messages, authored in Yoruba, explicitly warned residents to prepare for invasion on the specified date. A second note, written in English, contained a more cryptic and alarming allegation, claiming the writers had been "working" in the area for three days and suggesting that they were acting on behalf of government interests.
Oyo State Police Public Relations Officer DSP Olayinka Ayanlade stated that the individual who discovered the notes is currently undergoing debriefing by the State Intelligence Department (SID). Ayanlade emphasised that the command is exploring all leads to determine if the threats are a genuine warning from criminal elements or a psychological hoax designed to destabilise the community.
"The command wishes to inform members of the public that it has received credible information regarding a handwritten note allegedly dropped in front of a residential building in Ikoyi-Ile," DSP Ayanlade said in an official statement. He added that Commissioner of Police Femi Haruna has ordered the immediate activation of the command’s "intelligence, tactical, and operational response architecture" to safeguard the axis.
The threat has sparked widespread anxiety, occurring in the shadow of the January 6 attack at Oloka village. During that incident, armed men stormed the National Park Service office, killing five personnel in what Governor Seyi Makinde described as a "devastating loss". Preliminary findings by the state government suggest the previous attack was carried out by cross-border bandits moving through the region's dense forest corridors.
