By Olivier Acuña Barba •
Published: 28 Jul 2025 • 20:27
• 2 minutes read
The so-called bandits continue to thrive in Nigeria, primarily because of impunity and corruption | Credit: ndlink.org
Thirty-eight people were executed by their kidnappers despite the ransom being paid. Kidnapping in the northern region of Nigeria has become a multi-million-dollar industry, run by so-called ‘bandits,’ armed groups that carry out large-scale ransom kidnappings, but killing victims of abduction is not as common.
A recent study found that abject poverty, corruption and fraud, political influence, joblessness, terrorism, government impunity, the changing value system and quick-money syndrome are the significant causes of kidnapping in Nigeria. A Nigerian government 2022 report revealed that 63 per cent of the country’s population is multidimensionally poor, which means they are deprived along three dimensions, including education, no access to basic services (water, sewage, electricity) and financially vulnerable.
In March of last year, a hostage negotiator told the BBC that paying ransoms is considered illegal, but that it is the only option families have to try to guarantee the release of their loved ones. However, today demonstrates that paying doesn’t always ensure your relatives are going to survive at the hands of gangs terrorising swathes of northern Nigeria.
38 ‘were slaughtered like rams’
The tragic story today is about 38 people who were abducted from a village in northern Zamfara state and who were killed despite a ransom being paid for their release, a local official told the BBC.
The official reports say that the “bandits” initially abducted 56 people and asked their relatives for one million naira ($655 or £485) for each of their victims.
“What happened was that the bandits demanded ransom money, and after some back-and-forth, they were given what they asked for,” said local government chairman Manniru Haidara Kaura.
“They then released 18 people, including 17 women and one young boy, on Saturday,” Haidara added. The rest, mostly young people, “were slaughtered like rams.”
The glaring question here is, why did they kill 38 people so sadistically?
“Only they [the gunmen] know why they killed them. They are senseless and heartless people. They forget that they are killing their own brothers, and we will all meet before Allah,” said the government official.
Corpses are rarely returned
The 18 who were lucky to survive are in the hospital receiving medical attention, but those who were killed, not even their corpses will ever be seen again, as they are rarely released, the BBC said.
In 2022, a law that contemplates 15 years in prison for kidnappers was put into force in an attempt to curb the spiralling and lucrative abduction business. It made kidnapping punishable by death if the criminals killed the victims. Three years later, and nobody has been arrested under that law.
Today, around 30,000 bandits in more than 100 gangs operate in northwestern Nigeria, according to the Centre for Democracy and Development – a think-tank based in the capital, Abuja.
And while kidnapping is on the rise, negotiating ransom is illegal, authorities insist that paying “bandits” for the release of loved ones is counterproductive and only further fuels the business of abduction.
Between July 2022 and June 2023, 3,620 people were abducted in 582 kidnapping cases in Nigeria, with about 5 billion naira (approximately $3.88 million) paid in ransoms, according to a Vatican News report in March of this year.
