August 30, (THEWILL) — The SBM Intelligence Report on Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis read like a threat to living in Africa’s most populous country. It looks like a terrifying update on a similar report by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics in 2024.
In its Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey of that year, the NBS reported that Nigerians paid an estimated N2.23 trillion in ransom to kidnappers between May 2023 and April 2024. It said 6 per cent of households that experienced a kidnapping incident were forced to pay a ransom and the average ransom amount paid per incident was N2,670,693. The North-west and North-Central geo-political zones were the worst hit, the NBS report stated.
Two years down the line, the crime has surged over 60 percent. Rather than abate, at least in direct proportion to the renewed war against insecurity according to the authorities, abduction for ransom has increased and become a thriving industry.
According to the SBM Intel, appropriately titled “The Capture of the Kidnap Economy”, victims and their families paid N7.78 billion in ransom between July 2025 and June 2026.
The report stated that while the total ransom demanded by kidnappers declined from N48 billion in the previous period to N22.9 billion under review, actual ransom payments increased sharply from N2.56 billion to N7.78 billion.
This pushed the ransom collection rate from 5.35 percent to 34 percent, indicating a significant increase in the ability of criminal groups to convert abductions into financial gains.
The abducted were 7,825 and 1,142 were killed in 1,713 kidnap and kidnap-related incidents within one year.
Of this sum, the report said, N5 billion was paid for the release of 416 captives abducted from Ngoshe in Borno State, while another N2 billion was allegedly paid for 315 pupils and staff abducted from St Mary’s School, Papiri, in Niger State.
More revealing is that a faction of Boko Haram, Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad collected N7 billion from only eight abduction incidents. The report shows that the government and citizens were both deeply involved with ransom payment in the past one year.
The fact established by the report is that abduction for ransom has indeed become an industry and a thriving one at that. Terrorists extract money from victims and the government, with which they fund their criminal activities.
More distressing is the fact, as established by the report, that paying ransom does not guarantee the safety or survival of victims.
The thriving kidnapping industry is a reflection of how the abductors have expanded the scope of their operations; mass abduction of students and their teachers, as happened in Oyo and Borno States recently or taking prominent Nigerians hostage as happened with retired Major General Rabe Abubakar and his wife in Katsina state.
In some cases, entire communities are abducted as happened in Kwara where neigbouring citizens had to abandon their communities for safety reasons.
READ ALSO:
Last week in Niger State, over 600 citizens were abducted. If payment of ransom did not guarantee safety of the victims, why are families and government still indulging in it?
If the average ransom amount paid per incident was N2,670,693 as the NBS report stated two years ago, why is it difficult to track the payment of the money?
Between the NBS report and SMB Intel, it is obvious that kidnapping has become big business in Nigeria, with a vast web of collaborators, sympathisers and informants across official institutions and communities as other reports on errant officials have since established.
Though the state policing arrangement is ongoing, Forest Guards have been deployed in relevant states, army divisions have increased and awaiting additional 28, 000 recruits, it is high time the government considered expert advice to deploy technology in the form of drones, for instance, which can detect locations and destroy their evil inhabitants with less human and direct confrontation.
