By Jemimah Wellington, JKNewsMedia Correspondent
NIGERIA’s KIDNAPPING crisis has entrenched itself as a booming criminal enterprise, with over N48 billion demanded in ransom between July 2024 and June 2025, according to a new report by B Morgen (SBM) Intelligence.
The Africa-focused geopolitical research and consulting firm said in its study, Economics of Nigeria’s Kidnap Industry, that only N2.57 billion of the ransom demands was actually paid during the 12-month review period.
The report confirmed that at least 4,722 people were abducted across 997 incidents, while no fewer than 762 victims lost their lives.
SBM Intelligence noted that ransom payments reached their highest level yet, with N2.56 billion ($1.66 million) confirmed as paid out within the year under review.
The firm also observed that while ransom sums demanded in naira have surged, the corresponding dollar values remain stagnant due to sharp currency devaluation.
Figures from SBM showed that in 2022, N653.7 million paid in ransom equated to approximately $1.13 million.
In 2023, ransom payments dropped to N302 million ($387,179). By 2024, the total rose to N1.05 billion, valued at about $655,000.
In the latest cycle, the N2.56 billion ransom translated to $1.66 million, stressing the declining value of the naira.
The firm explained that this divergence demonstrates how kidnappers have adjusted ransom amounts in response to the weakening currency, turning abductions into a self-sustaining business model.
“The perpetrators are demanding increasingly higher sums in naira to compensate for the currency’s weakening purchasing power,” the report stated.
State-level data from SBM revealed that Zamfara, Kaduna and Katsina recorded the highest number of kidnappings.
Katsina accounted for 131 incidents, or 13.1 per cent of the national total, but Zamfara recorded the highest number of actual victims, with 1,203 people abducted, representing more than a quarter of all cases.
Kaduna followed with 123 incidents, while Niger reported 40. Delta State was the only southern state among the top five, with 49 incidents, representing less than five per cent of the national total.
SBM said kidnappers became bolder in their demands, citing the abduction of Chidimma and Precious Enuma, and their aunt, Anwuri Oko Ye, in Ebedei Ukwuole community of Ukwuani Local Government Area of Delta State on 15 March 2025.
The abductors demanded N30 billion, accounting for 62.5 per cent of the total ransom demanded nationwide during the reporting period.
According to the report, kidnapping has become pervasive in the Northwest, while the Southeast and South-South regions increasingly face targeted religious abductions and financially motivated crimes.
“Kidnapping for ransom has emerged as a pervasive and destabilising criminal enterprise in Nigeria, one that capitalises on the country’s economic fragility,” the firm stated.
The report emphasised that Nigeria’s worsening economic situation, rising unemployment, and weak law enforcement capacity have sustained the growth of kidnapping as a structured criminal economy.
SBM warned that the situation now risks entrenching kidnapping as a long-term national industry unless systemic action is taken.
The firm advised that breaking the cycle requires disrupting financial networks through advanced tracing technologies and stabilising the economy to reduce recruitment into criminal groups.
“Without coordinated strategies targeting both the crime’s profitability and its socioeconomic drivers, Nigeria risks entrenching kidnapping as a grim national industry, one that perpetuates poverty, undermines recovery, and leaves citizens hostage to a failing system,” SBM cautioned.
The report concluded that dismantling the ransom economy is critical to restoring national security, stressing that “the time for half-measures has passed.”
