Why Kidnapping, Banditry Is Spreading In Nigeria, Proposed Solutions

The current spate of kidnapping in Nigeria is mind boggling, coming in various shapes such as commercial kidnapping (kidnapping for ransom), religious kidnapping, political kidnapping and so on, and there are obvious motivations for this accelerated crime rate.

On July 5, 2022, suspected members of Boko Haram sect launched a coordinated attack on Kuje Prison, near Abuja. The attackers killed five people and freed inmates. The Punch reported on March 21, 2024 that over 900 inmates escaped, quoting the Nigerian Army as saying that they had written to their Controller General of the Correctional Service, warning of the dangers before the July 5, 2022 jailbreak.

On September 16, 2024, The Guardian reported that over 200 inmates escaped from Prison in north east Nigeria, after the worst flooding there in two decades. Borno had been overrun by water on September 9, 2024, following the collapse of a dam, according to Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and people were displaced. Abubakar Umar, Spokesperson for Nigeria Correctional Service said 281 inmates had escaped while being transferred to another facility after the prison was flooded. Seven prisoners were recaptured while 274 others were at large after the flood brought down the walls of the prison.

Daily Trust of August 12, 2025 reports that Hon. Kabiru Alhassan Usman Rurum from Kano State at Federal House of Representatives said over 7,000 inmates had escaped from Nigeria’s prisons in 17 jail breaks across the country between September 2015 and July 2023. Over 10 jail breaks were chronicled between 2021 and 2025.

This implies that over 7,000 prison escapees, some of who were in prison for kidnapping, banditry and terrorism and had developed bitterness against the Nigerian state and system, are now scattered all over the country while some might have regrouped to execute the on-going kidnappings for ransom. These are ways that this criminal population has been generated.

Another way that their membership has built up is through release of their members in prison in exchange for abductees. When the kidnappers reached the government in Ogbomosho school kidnap case, they made so many unreasonable demands, including the implementation of Sharia law in the state and the release of their leaders that are in prison. Hundreds of kidnappers in prison have been released in different states. Releasing even one bandit or terrorist that is angry and has been in prison, in exchange for kidnapped persons, is like a reinforcement of their terrorist group capacity.

How have they generated weapons? The United Nations Under-Secretary-General of Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu said on June 5, 2026 that most weapons being used by these criminals in Nigeria had found their way from Lybia through the Sahel region.

According to Hon. Nnena Ukeje, who sponsored a bill on proliferation of small arms in the House of Representatives, over 174,000 arms and ammunitions have been stolen from the Nigeria police. She disclosed this on Arise TV News programme on June 4, 2026. Today, those weapons have been unleashed and are in the hands of unknown people who are part of the current bandits and kidnappers.

After the widely publicized Evans kidnapping saga, terrorists and bandits who are now kidnappers had realized that since kidnapping high profile individuals for ransom was a profitable venture and a difficult task, kidnapping should be extended to just anybody. Besides, the Chibok Girls’ adoption that gave the kidnappers international attention in 2014 gave these criminals the idea that even though the peasant parents of the many children kidnapped cannot pay huge ransom, government would always pay because children are involved. This has boosted their interest in kidnapping and enabled mass abductions.

Kidnappers are reportedly not the only beneficiaries of ransom payment. The process of ransom payment  delivery would involve some professional negotiator who of course, would not pray that the trend stops because it benefits him or her. Besides, with the spate of corruption in Nigeria, movement of such huge amounts of money from government coffers to the criminals may not benefit only the receivers of such ransom. We recall that the kidnappers of May 15 Ogbomosho school students had insisted on speaking with government official. That speaks a lot.

In 2022, the Safe School initiative to enhance security at schools earlier introduced by government, was re-launched with a budget of N144 billion under the National Plan (2023-2026). Yet, in over a decade, over 1,680 school children had been kidnapped. In April 2026, Punch reported that Nigeria’s government had proposed N5 billion again for the initiative while lawmakers were investigating what happened to the earlier budgeted N144 billion. That is the trust deficit element in this insecurity challenge.

Amidst all these, there have been reports of people, arranging their own kidnap, just to get money out of government or relatives. Some kidnaps are being arranged by close associates of victims. So, because kidnapping has become a lucrative business, it is growing.

Geometrically growing poverty is equally enabling kidnapping. This is the poverty perspective. Poverty rate stands between 62% and 63%, with approximately 133 to 141 million out of the 120 million citizens, living below the poverty line. It is an increase driven by soaring food prices, weak real income growth and persistent inflationary pressures eroding household purchasing power. Nigeria’s poverty rate has contributed to commercial kidnapping rate, but remains a no excuse for such crime.

Nigeria’s slow judicial process is equally enabling this crime. Even when a law court tries a kidnapper or bandit and eventually sentences him or her to death, a lawyer in Nigeria would have the moral courage to appeal such case to a higher court, thereby spitting on the faces of the people that the convict has killed to warrant conviction. Hypocritical state governors also enable the crime by refusing to sign death warrants for religious reasons, despite the fact that some of such politicians have allegedly had innocent people’s blood shed on their behalf by some of their loyalists and thugs in the ;process of electing them into office.

There is also religious kidnapping. The Chibok Girls were made to forcefully undergo an Islamization process. Also, Arise TV reported on June 1, 2026 that Boko Haram plans Quranic Graduation for over 100 women and children abducted from Woro Community in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State. Through a phone conversation, families of the women and children were told by Boko Haram militants that they were planning a Quranic graduation ceremony for more than 100 people, who had been held for months after a deadly attack on the area. They were taught Captive Islamic Studies, Religious Practices and Quran Memorization. They were told that the cost of the ceremony would be included in future negotiations over their release.

Churches and mosques are also being invaded while clerics are killed.

There is also allegedly, political kidnapping where a politician arranges kidnap incidents in the community of his or her opponent as part of the devilish political game. The various types of kidnapping all seem to have been commercialized since money can be made out of the crime.

Unfortunately, both Nigeria’s presidency and opposition political parties are interpreting all kidnappings and their accompanied killings as being politically motivated. Daily Trust of April 29, 2026 reads: “President Bola Tinubu has described himself as a “very stubborn politician” whom his enemies tried to get rid of through insecurity. Speaking at the Presidential Villa in Abuja while receiving stakeholders from Plateau State led by  Governor Caleb Muftwang on Tuesday night, Tinubu said he had remained resolute despite criticism over insecurity

“You are playing to the hand of agents, including my own enemies, who want to use insecurity to get rid of me. But I am a very stubborn politician. I just refuse to go,” he said.

Daily Trust also reported that Senate President Godswill Akpabio attributed the rising insecurity in the country to the forthcoming election, saying there will be a change after the elections.

The two weeks spent by federal government before sending a delegation and the many days spent by Oyo State Government before visiting the families of the kidnapped victims that included a toddler, and a beheaded school teacher, confirmed that government is yet to objectively identify the enormity of the insecurity challenge it has before it.

The truth is that government will not be able to stem the spate of this crime until it objectively identifies the causes. Government also needs to show a willingness to address this challenge. The government’s “repentant terrorists” rehabilitation and reintegration programme, with military chiefs telling Nigerians that the repentant terrorists are “prodigal sons” or “clients” has also helped these criminals to strengthen their intelligence network and population. Right thinking persons believe that the only repentance such brutal humans that behead innocent citizens deserve, is to send them to their creator, who should decide whether or not their sins should be forgiven.

As for the modus operandi of kidnappers currently unleashing kidnap incidents across the country, some of them must have been among those over 7,000 prisoners that escaped through jail breaks across the country. They established forest bases and , infiltrated communities.

Because some local communities in the north are scanty and have isolated houses, they probably quietly infiltrated the communities, mingled with the people, established leadership structures, conquered the communities and started collecting taxes from those communities.

In some northern and south western communities, they sack the communities and abduct the people, including the emirs and Obas. Some operations in communities  have been enabled by the presence of thick forests where they carry out their meetings and trainings. Reports have shown that they strike en-mass in a coordinated manner with motorcycles and guns, kidnap victims and then begin to move from location to location to avoid easy tracking while torturing victims and making phone calls for ransom payment.

URGENT ACTIIONS NEEDED: The animalistic behaviour of the kidnappers towards the victims as displayed on videos seen in social media suggest that they do the torturing of victims under the influence of drugs. The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) should immediately deploy its officers across Nigeria in a manner that the Nigeria police personnel are deployed to checkpoints so they can conduct drug tests on all Nigerian residents.

Presently, guns are all over the place. Government should urgently either take steps to retrieve sophisticated weapons from the hands of illegal possessors across the country, ensure proper screenings at land, sea and air borders to forestall entry of illegal arms  or issue an executive order or legislation to license individuals to carry rifles and protect themselves against bandits and kidnappers.

One notable challenge when the incident occurs is that when kidnappers raid a community, response from security agencies has been slow, sometimes because of the distance from location of security personnel. In many cases, they have arrived after the exit of the criminals. Government should immediately create first responders to such raids of community by kidnappers and bandits.

In every community, a first responder task force, consisting of Nigeria Security & Civil Defence Corps (NSCD) personnel, local vigilante, the likes of Amotekun (in states where they are available) and indigenous retired active military and police officers. The retired military and police officers will be armed and one of them will lead the task force training, so that when such bandits raids occur, there would be a return of fire power before the police and the military arrives.

As urgently as yesterday, all state governments in Nigeria should deploy one or two police helicopters along with surveillance drones to hover round all forests in the states so that successful assembly of bandits in the forests for planning would be dissuaded.

Monies used for ransom payment can be marked for tracing of bandits and kidnappers while use of technology should be maximized. It is time for Nigeria to mount an active satellite and adopt technologies that can give security central control an access to a view of movements across the country. A satellite project is capital intensive but with international partnership, anything can be achieved.

The policing of Nigeria’s porous borders requires urgent attention. The proposed recruitment of forest guards by President Tinubu will be helpful but should be done in phases if it is to yield practical evidential results.

The proper identification of who is or is not a Nigerian among residents has become as urgent as yesterday. Every occupant of the country, including the homeless people that sleep under bridges and in the markets and those who drive motorcycles must all have a means of identification. Adult residents who are comfortable to exist without mobile phones should be subtly  forced to own one or provided with one.

Arrested terrorists, bandits or kidnappers should be tried speedily and if convicted, should be executed within 48 hours after their court sentence because they are a poison to the rest of the citizenry.

Nigeria’s constitution states that the welfare and security of citizens shall be the primary function of the government. Citizens’ security and welfare is governance related. Political election is just a periodic process for accessing governance.

Unfortunately, the present administration has from inception given a high percentage of its attention to politics, and part of the backlash is the widespread poverty and hydra-headed insecurity problems that all Nigerian now face.

The good eggs in Nigeria’s various security agencies deserve commendation for their efforts. Many have paid the supreme price for the country in the process of fighting avoidable insurgency.

The Nigeria-US collaboration has so far, paid off in terms of unsettling the criminals. Perhaps this is why they are constantly on the move after kidnapping. However, there is still so much to be done under the current level of urgency. School children, churches and residents of close-to-forest communities have become endangered species.

Though government must lead the way, government alone cannot conquer the brutal criminals in our midst. Intelligence is key. When you see a stranger or strange movement in your neighbourhood, please, say something. Intelligence and collaboration can help us all. God bless Nigeria.