How women and children bear the brunt of Nigeria's kidnapping pandemic

In April 2014, news of the mass abduction of Chibok schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants shocked the world, sparking a global #BringBackOurGirls campaign.

Nearly a decade later, Nigeria continues to be plagued by large-scale kidnappings across the country’s volatile northern region, with militant groups and ragtag gangs preying on the easiest of targets – women and children.

Last week, at least 287 children were abducted from their school in the northwestern Kaduna state, marking one of the largest school abductions since 276 Chibok schoolgirls from Borno state in the northeast were taken ten years ago.

"They came on motorcycles carrying guns, with some of them wearing military uniforms standing and shouting 'All of you should stop' while shooting in the air," thirteen-year-old Aminu Abdullahi, who managed to run for safety, was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency about the 50-odd gunmen involved in Thursday's kidnapping.

The kidnapping has also brought renewed attention to Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis, compounded with news of a previous group abduction on February 29 involving internally displaced persons, mostly women and children, who were looking for firewood in the Ngala Local Government Area of Borno, according to the UN.

UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria Mohamed Malick Fall said in a statement that the exact number of people abducted remains unknown “but is estimated at over 200 people,” adding that some of the victims were later released.

“The crisis in the [Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe] states is disproportionately affecting women, boys and girls,” Fall said on March 6. “There is a high prevalence of [gender-based violence] against women and adolescent girls, while boys are targeted for recruitment by [non-state armed groups].”

‘So common’

Mass abductions aren’t unusual in Nigeria. In general, kidnapping someone for ransom is a lucrative business with low risk, and many point to economic insecurity and impunity as the basis for the act in what is Africa’s most populous nation.

“They are so common because of the failure of governance over the years, which has allowed different armed groups to evolve within ungoverned spaces,” Oluwole Ojewale, the regional organised crime observatory coordinator for Central Africa, told TRT World in a separate broadcast interview.

The kidnappings usually take place in Nigeria’s troubled northern region, where relentless violence by extremist groups, as well as by armed groups, known locally as bandits, who have no particular ideology. “Their overarching objective is to profit from these kidnapping [for] ransom payments that they are able to receive,” Ojewale said, referring to the latter.

Once the ransom money is paid, victims are typically released, and the kidnappers are seldom apprehended.

It's worth noting paying a ransom to secure someone's release is illegal in Nigeria after the country passed a law meting out a 15-year jail term for paying ransom to kidnappers. In instances where the victims die, abduction is punishable by death.

Schools become targets

On March 9, armed men kidnapped 15 children who were sleeping, after breaking into a boarding school in the Gidan Bakuso village of the Gada council area in Sokoto state.

Before this year’s incidents, the last time Nigeria witnessed mass kidnappings from a school was in July 2021, when around 150 students were abducted by armed men. Since 2014, more than 1,400 students have reportedly been kidnapped for ransom by armed gangs targeting schools.

Speaking to CBS News about the latest slew of kidnappings, regional security expert David Otto said, "These three recent incidents have shown the government cannot protect children at school, improve the lives of women at IDP camps, and ultimately that the state does not have control over the country's security.”

School kidnappings were initially perpetrated by Boko Haram when it seized the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 before bandit groups began following this method to seek ransom payments.

According to news reports, citing local consulting firm SBM Intelligence, 4,777 kidnappings have been recorded since President Bola Tinubu took office in May 2023.

Tinubu’s election campaign had entailed promises to end insecurity and kidnapping in Nigeria, but the nation’s security crises, including in the northwest and central regions where many more have been killed in continuing clashes between nomadic cattle herders and farming communities.

“I have received briefing from security chiefs on the two incidents, and I am confident that the victims will be rescued,” Tinubu said in a statement posted on X. “Nothing else is acceptable to me and the waiting family members of these abducted citizens. Justice will be decisively administered.”

On March 11, another fresh kidnapping incident saw at least 61 people taken by gunmen from northern Buda village, about 160 kilometres from Kuriga town where the schoolchildren were seized last Thursday.

"My wife is among the 61 people those bandits kidnapped. We are still expecting them to call for ransom as usual," resident Lawal Abdullahi, who was away when gunmen attacked, told Reuters.

Citing the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), the Economist reported more than 3,600 people kidnapped in 2023.

Retired CIA officer and head of 14 North, an Africa-focused risk advisory, William Linder told the BBC, “Nigeria's poor economy creates the conditions for kidnapping. Over the past year, the government has not been able to fix its foreign exchange problem,” adding that food prices have shot up in the last six months.

"These pressures only add to the woes of many, especially in the north. This pushes people to seek alternative means of income,” Linder said. “Unfortunately, kidnapping for ransom is one.”

In a statement released following the large-scale abduction of schoolchildren in Kaduna state on March 7, UNICEF representative in Nigeria Cristian Munduate said, “Every child deserves to grow up in an environment of peace, away from the looming shadows of threats and insecurity. Unfortunately, we are currently facing a significant deterioration in community safety, with children disproportionately suffering the consequences of this decline in security.”