Nigeria's kidnapping crisis spreads south as gangs intensify ransom attacks

Fatima was fifty-five when gunmen on motorcycles arrived at her village in Zamfara, in north-western Nigeria, at two in the morning. They came in groups of three, spreading through the settlement with practiced efficiency—one team at the entrance, another in the centre, a third blocking the rear. When residents tried to flee, the shooting started. "They opened fire without a care in the world, shooting indiscriminately," she told the BBC World Service, her voice steady as she recounted the attack that killed about seventy people from Bia Buki village in June, including her husband and six of his seven siblings.

This was not an isolated incident. Across Nigeria's north-west, gangs locally known as bandits have turned kidnapping and extortion into a systematic business. Most are from the Fulani ethnic group, traditionally cattle herders who have found that abduction for ransom pays faster and easier than raising livestock. They attack towns and villages, ambush travellers, demand protection money from farmers before allowing them into their own fields, and kill those who resist. The scale has accelerated sharply. In the first half of this year, recorded incidents in the bandit heartlands rose seventy-eight percent compared to the same period the year before. Across Nigeria as a whole, kidnappings doubled over that same stretch.

The violence has displaced roughly eight hundred thousand people, according to the United Nations. Fatima fled into the forest with her children and neighbours, taking whoever's child she could find in the chaos, sleeping rough before making her way to Gusau, the state capital. She now lives in an informal camp there with her seven children, aged between nine and thirty. More than a thousand people shelter in the dusty compound, many wearing bright hijabs, sitting in groups on the ground. There is no proper place to sleep. Food arrives sporadically, brought occasionally by what Fatima calls "good Samaritans" with rice or potatoes. Children are sent out to gather firewood to sell so families can buy meals. Twenty-two children from the camp have been kidnapped by bandits. In one nearby building, Fatima says, you will find a hundred or more women, and perhaps only two or three have eaten breakfast.

The threat has not receded even sixteen miles from her village. When Fatima first arrived at the camp, gunshots kept her awake at night. The situation has quieted somewhat, she credits army patrols and government-backed vigilante groups, but the atmosphere remains tense. The bandit leader from her village has become its de facto authority, settling domestic disputes. Her own village has been converted into a camp for the gunmen who attacked it. A nearby settlement is completely empty—not even a chicken remains. "Empty villages like that are countless," she said.

The crisis is no longer confined to the north-west. In May of this year, gunmen on motorcycles attacked three schools in Oyo state, in south-west Nigeria, a region previously considered relatively safe. They abducted thirty-nine children, the youngest just two years old, along with seven teachers. One teacher was killed during the raid; another's murder was filmed and shared online. After fifty-six days, forty-four hostages were released. The government said it refused to pay ransom and that security forces secured their release. Three men were sentenced to life in prison and confessed to being members of a Boko Haram affiliate. The abduction terrified the community. Parents pulled their children from school. "There is fear because many residents have run away and are yet to return," said Oba Tajudeen Abioye, the traditional ruler, whose niece was among the kidnapped.

Nigeria's military and police are stretched thin across multiple overlapping crises: bandit gangs in the north-west, an Islamist insurgency in the north-east, separatist unrest in the south-east, and clashes in central regions over land and water access. A 2025 UN report found police stations often underfunded and not fully operational, with officers lacking training in hostage negotiation and forensic investigation. President Bola Tinubu's administration has allocated the largest defence and security budget in the country's history, raising it by ten percent in December 2025 and approving the recruitment of twenty-eight thousand new soldiers. But the immediate gap is being filled by government-backed vigilante groups.

One vigilante, speaking on condition of anonymity, sat on his motorcycle with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and a makeshift balaclava across his face, gold and silver skull rings on his fingers. He said his group had been hired by the governor to protect the community, sometimes told where bandits are located, and had fought them at least twenty times. "It's hard to go a week without these reports," he said. But there are concerns about this approach. In 2020, Zamfara banned a large vigilante group over fears that extrajudicial killings were driving more violence. Malik Samuel, a researcher at Good Governance Africa, calls the armed citizen groups a "time bomb waiting to happen." "If citizens arm themselves, how do you control them at the end of the crisis? How are you able to disarm them?" he asks. Fatima, for her part, simply wants more security agents and more effort. She wants to go home, but doubts she ever will.