₦7.8bn Ransom Paid As Kidnappers Abduct Over 7,800, Kill 1,142 Nigerians In One Year – Report

• 7,825 Nigerians were abducted in 1,713 kidnappings and related incidents between July 2025 and June 2026, according to SBM Intelligence.

• At least 1,142 people were killed during the period, while victims’ families paid ₦7.78bn in ransom to criminal groups, including Boko Haram.

• Boko Haram’s Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad faction reportedly accounted for about 90 percent of the ransom paid, collecting ₦7bn from just eight incidents.

• Security experts warned that ransom payments are helping terrorists, bandits and kidnappers acquire weapons, recruit more fighters and expand their criminal operations.

August 28, () — Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis has assumed the dimension of a thriving criminal economy, with 7,825 people abducted and at least 1,142 others killed in 1,713 kidnap and kidnap-related incidents within one year, a new report by SBM Intelligence has revealed.

The report, titled “The Capture of the Kidnap Economy”, showed that victims and their families paid ₦7.78 billion in ransom between July 2025 and June 2026, raising fresh concerns over the financial incentives sustaining abductions across the country.

The report also warned that the huge sums being extracted from victims were not merely enriching criminal groups but were helping to strengthen their capacity to procure arms and sustain violent operations.

According to the report, while the total ransom demanded by kidnappers declined from ₦48 billion in the previous period to ₦22.9 billion under review, actual ransom payments increased sharply from ₦2.56 billion to ₦7.78 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.

Boko Haram Takes Lion’s Share

SBM Intelligence attributed about 90 percent of the ransom paid during the period to the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad faction of Boko Haram, which reportedly collected ₦7 billion from only eight abduction incidents.

Two major mass kidnappings accounted for almost the entire amount attributed to the group.

The report said ₦5 billion was reportedly paid for the release of 416 captives abducted from Ngoshe in Borno State, while another ₦2 billion was allegedly paid for 315 pupils and staff abducted from St Mary’s School, Papiri, in Niger State.

The figures highlight the growing scale of mass abductions and the ability of terrorist groups to extract enormous sums from vulnerable communities and families.

SBM Intelligence said mass abduction had emerged as the most frequent operational pattern among kidnappers, with Zamfara recording 92 mass abduction incidents and Sokoto 76 during the period.

The resurgence of school abductions, particularly the Papiri incident, was described as having consequences extending beyond the immediate safety of students and school workers, affecting education, agriculture and public confidence.

The report further cautioned that paying ransom did not guarantee the safety or survival of victims.

It documented at least six incidents in which hostages were killed even after ransom had reportedly been paid, underscoring the risks faced by families who negotiate with criminal groups under extreme pressure.

Experts Warn Against Ransom Economy

Reacting to the findings, security expert Jackson Ojo described Nigeria as an “unsafe territory”, blaming the worsening security situation partly on what he termed the lackadaisical attitude of some government officials.

Ojo said the failure of the state to mount sufficient resistance had enabled terrorists, bandits and kidnappers to transform abduction into one of the country’s major criminal revenue-generating enterprises.

“Due to the lackadaisical attitude of some persons in government, they have now helped the terrorists, the kidnappers, and the bandits to turn the kidnapping industry in Nigeria into one of the highest industries and economic revenue-generating industries in Nigeria”, he said.

He argued that the primary responsibility of government was to protect citizens, particularly because ordinary Nigerians were legally restricted from bearing arms for self-defence.

Ojo also raised concern over the increasing sophistication and audacity of criminal groups, citing instances where bandits allegedly issued advance notices to communities and demanded specific items, including motorcycles and telephone call cards, as ransom.

He expressed further concern over casualties among military personnel engaged in counter-insurgency and anti-banditry operations, saying the reported loss of senior officers had become alarming.

“It has degenerated to the extent that we have lost about four generals, we have lost about three or four colonels, and countless numbers of majors, captains, and others”, he said.

Former Commissioner of Police in the Federal Capital Territory and security consultant, Lawrence Alobi, similarly condemned the huge ransom payments, describing them as exploitative and a major driver of organised criminality.

Alobi said the money paid to kidnappers was being recycled into the criminal economy through the purchase of weapons and the strengthening of kidnapping networks.

“In fact, kidnapping has now become like a lucrative business for the huge amount of money that has been given to bandits. By paying these ransoms, it strengthens them because they go and get more arms, get empowered, and so forth. It emboldens criminality”, he said.

He advocated measures to discourage ransom payments, arguing that continued payment had effectively turned kidnapping into a commercial venture.

Alobi, however, acknowledged the difficult choices confronting families whose relatives had been abducted, noting that they were often compelled to raise ransom because the lives of their loved ones were at stake.

“If it’s possible, the issue of ransom should not be paid to anybody”, he said, stressing that families were frequently forced into negotiations because “the victim is always at the mercy of the family”.

Breaking The Criminal Economy

SBM Intelligence recommended a coordinated strategy that would simultaneously disrupt the financial flows sustaining insurgency and kidnapping while tackling the economic conditions that make recruitment into criminal groups possible.

It warned that simply responding to individual abduction incidents without attacking the financial structure behind the crime would allow kidnapping to remain profitable and therefore difficult to eradicate.

“Without a coordinated strategy that targets both the profitability of the crime and its roots, Nigeria risks entrenching kidnapping not merely as a criminal industry but as a funding mechanism for the very groups that most threaten its stability”, the report warned.

The latest findings come against the backdrop of years of escalating insecurity in Nigeria, with terrorists, bandits and criminal gangs exploiting vast ungoverned spaces, weak community protection mechanisms and the vulnerability of rural populations to carry out mass abductions.

Kidnapping has increasingly moved beyond isolated attacks to organised mass abductions involving schools, communities, travellers and entire settlements. The financial rewards from such operations have, in turn, raised concerns that ransom payments are creating a cycle in which successful abductions finance further attacks.

The report therefore underscores a growing dilemma for Nigeria’s security authorities. While families may resort to ransom payments as an immediate means of securing the release of loved ones, the cumulative effect is potentially strengthening the same criminal networks responsible for the abductions.

With thousands abducted, more than 1,000 people killed and billions of naira transferred to criminal groups in just 12 months, the scale of the crisis has increasingly placed the fight against kidnapping at the centre of Nigeria’s broader national security challenge