Nigerians paid at least N2.57 billion to kidnappers between July 2024 and June 2025, while abductors demanded N48 billion in the same period, according to a new SBM Intelligence study on the country’s kidnap-for-ransom economy.
The report records 4,722 victims across 997 incidents, with at least 762 deaths linked to abduction-related violence.
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Describing kidnapping as a “lucrative criminal enterprise,” SBM noted that payments made amounted to roughly 5.35 per cent of total ransom demanded.
The figures are drawn from SBM’s open-source tracking of incidents and media-verified cases nationwide. Previous editions of the project found lower totals, underscoring a worsening kidnap economy.
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PREMIUM TIMES has reported several cases of kidnapping in different parts of the country. The kidnappings are carried out by different armed groups.
Regional hotspots
While the North-west remained the most violent region, with Zamfara, Kaduna and Katsina as hotspots, SBM Intelligence’s report showed that the Southern region faced targeted “religious abductions and financial extortion.”
“On a geopolitical zone count, the Northwest leads across both indicators: 425 incidents, accounting for 42.6 per cent of the total number of reported incidents, and the total number of people abducted (2938), accounting for 62.2 per cent of the total,” the report stated. “In comparison, the Southwest presents the best figures-5.3 per cent of total incidents-while it also has the least number of people kidnapped, with 144 kidnap victims (3% of the total).”
Katsina recorded the highest number of incidents (131), while Zamfara logged the highest number of victims (1,203), more than a quarter of the national total.
A striking pattern was observed in the South-south where kidnappers in a single case in Delta State demanded N30 billion, an amount that represented a large share of the nationwide ransom demanded as captured by the study.
Amount paid
Although demands topped N48 billion, the camount paid was N2.57 billion (about $1.66 million) over the 12 months under review.
“Borno ranks the highest in ransom paid, but just one case bumps the state up the rankings: the N766 million that was paid to the kidnappers of Justice Haruna Mshelia of the Borno State High Court, who was abducted in September 2024,” the think-tank noted, explaining that his kidnappers got the exact amount they demanded.
The firm’s data suggested that Boko Haram “got the largest share of ransom paid in this period.”
Out of the N124 million paid as ransom in Kwara State, the firm said that al-Qaeda-linked group led by Mallam Mamuda got N100 million, representing 80 per cent of the total amount.
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This shows that Islamist terror groups “got 33.7 per cent of the ransom paid in the period under review, blurring the line between ideology and convention.”
The consequences of the burgeoning kidnapping economy “are national in scale,” the firm said, noting: “Agricultural production falters as farmers face extortion, rural economies collapse under insecurity, and state legitimacy erodes.”
“In the North, mass abductions threaten entire communities and food security; nationwide, the crime’s “democratisation” reflects a society where desperation breeds predation,” it added. “Yet current responses—sporadic arrests and rhetorical condemnations—fail to address the roots of the crisis: a perfect storm of currency devaluation, poverty, and weak governance.”
The report warns that the kidnap industry’s profitability—fueled by weak law enforcement, economic hardship and community-level extortion dynamics—will persist without targeted disruption of networks and financing flows.
“Unless security forces dismantle these networks and address root causes—poverty, unemployment, and weak law enforcement—the cycle of kidnappings, ransoms, and deaths will continue unchecked, leaving ordinary Nigerians in perpetual fear,” it warned.
