A report compiled by security consultancy SBM Intelligence indicates that kidnappers in Nigeria have collected at least N7.78 billion in ransom payments between July 2025 and June 2026.
The report estimated that 7,825 people were abducted across the country during the period, representing a 66 per cent increase from the previous year. It also recorded at least 1,142 deaths linked to kidnapping incidents.
The findings, which were compiled by SBM from media reports, interviews, and publicly available information, said the ransom figure, equivalent to about $5.79 million, more than tripled compared with the previous year.
However, SBM noted that the actual amount could be significantly higher because many ransom payments were not publicly disclosed.
According to the report, a faction of Boko Haram collected about 90 per cent of recorded ransom payments from kidnapping incidents in the North-East, despite the North-West recording a higher number of kidnapping cases and victims.
SBM estimated that the Boko Haram faction received approximately N7 billion, largely from two mass abduction incidents in which more than 300 people were kidnapped in each case.
One of the major incidents cited was the abduction of 315 pupils and staff from a school in Papiri, Niger State, in November.
Kidnap-for-ransom has remained a major component of Nigeria’s security crisis, with armed bandits and Islamist militants targeting schools, communities and major roads and holding victims for weeks or months until ransom payments are made.
The report warned that the resurgence of school kidnappings was having wider consequences for education, agriculture and public confidence in government.
The findings came shortly after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu directed security agencies to rescue hundreds of civilians reportedly abducted during an attack in Niger State.
SBM Intelligence warned that without a coordinated strategy aimed at both reducing the profitability of kidnapping and addressing the underlying causes of insecurity, the crime could become increasingly entrenched as a major source of funding for criminal and insurgent groups.
The report also noted that the growing insecurity is likely to become a major issue ahead of Nigeria’s next general elections.
Veteran journalist and recipient of A.B.C Yola, Reporter of the Year Award (1997), Hassan Umar Shallpella, works with WAP as a Regional Correspondence. He was trained at Institute of Mass Communication and Technology Jos and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Training School Lagos.He was a News desk Editor and a Correspondent at the Punch newspaper and till 2019, was the Deputy Editor ofThe Scope newspaper.
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