Nigerian Kidnappers Rake In N2.23trn From 2.2m Victims
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reveals that some 2,235,954 Nigerians were kidnapped between May 2023 and April 2024, while families reportedly paid a staggering N2.23 trillion in ransom to secure victims’ freedom.
The report, which paints one of the darkest portraits yet of Nigeria’s worsening security crisis, shows that rural communities suffered the heaviest attacks with over 1.66 million incidents, compared to about 567,000 in urban centres.
About 65 percent of affected households reportedly paid ransom averaging N2.67 million per incident.
A breakdown of the figures is shown below:
North-West: Highest rate, with over 1.4 million recorded cases and the majority of the ransom payments (over ₦1 trillion)
North-Central: Second highest, with approximately 317,800 cases
South-East: Recorded the lowest regional figures, with around 110,400 cases.
Security analysts and public affairs commentators have described the figures as evidence that kidnapping has evolved into one of the country’s most profitable criminal enterprises.
In a recent policy article titled “Dangerous Move from Ajagungbale to Kidnapping and Banditry: The Result of Zero Prosecution,” veteran journalist and Newdawn Newsletter columnist, Olusegun Olurin, warned that violent land-grabbing syndicates in the South-West were rapidly mutating into organised kidnapping and banditry networks because “almost nobody is prosecuted.”
Olurin argued that decades of weak prosecution, judicial delays, compromised investigations, and poor police capacity have allowed criminal gangs to “industrialize violence,” turning land disputes into armed territorial warfare and eventually into rural kidnapping operations.
He warned that the implications go beyond insecurity, threatening agriculture, food security, diaspora investment, and Nigeria’s broader economic stability ahead of the 2027 elections.
The NBS figures have since triggered renewed calls for urgent security reforms, state police, stronger prosecution systems, and coordinated action against criminal syndicates operating across Nigeria’s rural corridors.
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