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Kidnapping is a major problem in Nigeria in the early 21st century. Kidnapping by bandits and insurgents is among the biggest organised or gang crime in Nigeria and is a national security challenge. [1]
This refers to the political kidnapping which started in the petroleum industry in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region in the early 2000s:
In the Niger Delta, agitators took expatriates working with multinational oil giants hostage, to force oil companies operating there to carry out community development projects for the benefit of the host communities or force government into negotiations for more of economic benefits accruing to the federal treasury for the region. [2]
Kidnappings by jihadist terror group Boko Haram in Nigeria's northeast and northwest began in 2009 in concurrence with the conflicts in the region. [3] [4]
Abductions by Islamist terrorist Boko Haram [5] [6] [7] [8] are to further its agenda, recruit fighters, instil fear, gain more international popularity and force the government to negotiate with it for ransom which is one of the means of generating funds for its terrorist operation. [9] [10] [11] Boko Haram have committed several mass kidnappings of students. [12]
Their 2014 kidnapping of 276 teenage girls from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, was covered extensively by the international media, making millions of people aware of that specific crime and of the insurgency. [12] Boko Haram often demand that victims' families or the government pay them ransoms, or that the government release prisoners from their group. [12] Boko Haram has brainwashed and forced some of the young people it has kidnapped into joining them and carrying out attacks, including suicide bombings. [12] Boko Haram force many young female victims to marry them. [12]
Kidnapping for ransom on a commercial scale became rampant in Nigeria in 2011 spread across all the 36 states and the country's capital, Abuja. [13] [14]
In February 2021, Nigerian journalist Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani wrote for the BBC News , "The Nigerian government seems to have suggested that it can no longer be relied on to keep citizens safe." [15] In 2020, it was reported that in the span of the decade covering 2011-2020, kidnappers have gotten at least $18.5 million in ransom payments. [16] [17] [18] In 2022, that figure stood at $1.12 million [19] [20] while $387,179 was paid in 2023. [21] [22]
Zamfara, one of the security dark spots in Nigeria is caught between herder-farmers clashes and kidnapping and banditry. [23] [24] In June 2019 a household was attacked by bandits seizing the man alongside his three wives and a 13-year-old son. [25] In August the Director of Budget for the state was kidnapped while his deputy he had been travelling with was killed in the attack. [26] [27] [28]
In 2019 the governor of Zamfara, Bello Matawalle, initiated a peace and reconciliation plan to bring the bandits who attack and kidnap villagers back home offering them jobs in place of kidnapping and banditry. In August 2019 over 300 kidnapped victims who were held captive waiting for the payment of ransom on their heads by family members were freed. [29] [30] Days later another batch of 40 kidnap victims were freed. [31]
On 24 April 2021, gunmen kidnapped students from the Federal University of Agriculture in Makurdi, in Benue State. [32] [33] [34] [35] According to eyewitnesses, three students were kidnapped, [36] [37] [38] but two students were confirmed kidnapped later. This is Nigeria's fifth kidnapping from an academic institution in 2021. It came just four days after the Greenfield University kidnapping. [39] On 28 April 2021, the university released a statement confirming the return of the abducted students. [40] According to the university's spokesperson, the two students came back on 27 April 2021 unhurt. [41]
The head of the Methodist church in Nigeria, Samuel Kanu, was kidnapped on Sunday 26 May 2022. [42] The kidnapping occurred along a highway in the southeastern state of Abia. He and a number of priests travelling to the Owerri airport after a church event were abducted after their vehicle's tyres were punctured by the assailants' bullets. Under threats of death by decapitation, the priests were coerced into paying an eventual ransom of a hundred million Naira. This was done via phone calls to heads and members of the church. [43] The funds were intended for distribution among the members of the kidnapping group present, but most were to be sent to other senior members of the larger kidnapping network, as well as to their sponsors.[ citation needed ]
Boko Haram, officially known as Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād, is an Islamist jihadist organization based in northeastern Nigeria, which is also active in Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. In 2016, the group split, resulting in the emergence of a hostile faction known as the Islamic State's West Africa Province.
The Boko Haram insurgency began in July 2009, when the militant Islamist and jihadist rebel group Boko Haram started an armed rebellion against the government of Nigeria. The conflict is taking place within the context of long-standing issues of religious violence between Nigeria's Muslim and Christian communities, and the insurgents' ultimate aim is to establish an Islamic state in the region.
Timeline of the Boko Haram insurgency is the chronology of the Boko Haram insurgency, an ongoing armed conflict between Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. Boko Haram have carried out many attacks against the military, police and civilians since 2009, mostly in Nigeria. The low-intensity conflict is centred on Borno State. It peaked in the mid 2010s, when Boko Haram extended their insurgency into Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 mostly Christian female students aged from 16 to 18 were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School at the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. Prior to the raid, the school had been closed for four weeks due to deteriorating security conditions, but the girls were in attendance in order to take final exams in physics.
On the night of 5-6 May 2014, Boko Haram militants attacked the twin towns of Gamboru and Ngala in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria. About 310 residents were killed in the 12-hour massacre, and the town was largely destroyed.
From 20 to 23 June 2014, a series of attacks occurred in Borno State, Nigeria. 91 women and children were kidnapped in the attacks and more than 70 people were killed.
Religious violence in Nigeria refers to Christian-Muslim strife in modern Nigeria, which can be traced back to 1953. Today, religious violence in Nigeria is dominated by the Boko Haram insurgency, which aims to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria. Since the turn of the 21st century, 62,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed by the terrorist group Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen and other groups. The killings have been referred to as a silent genocide.
The following lists events from 2014 in Nigeria.
On February 19, 2018, at 5:30 pm, 110 schoolgirls aged 11–19 years old were kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist group from the Government Girls' Science and Technical College (GGSTC). Dapchi is located in Bulabulin, Bursari Local Government area of Yobe State, in the northeast part of Nigeria. The federal government of Nigeria deployed the Nigerian Air Force and other security agencies to search for the missing schoolgirls and to hopefully enable their return. The governor of Yobe State, Ibrahim Gaidam, blamed Nigerian Army soldiers for having removed a military checkpoint from the town. Dapchi lies approximately 275 km northwest of Chibok, where over 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014.
The following is a list of events in 2020 in Nigeria.
During the evening of 11 December 2020, over 300 pupils were kidnapped from a boys' secondary boarding school on the outskirts of Kankara, Katsina State, northern Nigeria. A gang of gunmen on motorcycles attacked the Government Science Secondary School, where more than 800 pupils reside, for over an hour.
The following is a list of events in 2021 in Nigeria.
On 17 February 2021, a school pupil was killed and 27 others were abducted by armed men at around 3 am from their school in Kagara, Niger State, Nigeria. Three members of the school staff and 12 of their relatives were also abducted. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Zamfara kidnapping was the abduction of 279 female students aged between 10 and 17 during a raid by armed bandits on 26 February 2021. The kidnapping occurred at the Government Girls Science Secondary School, a boarding school in Jangebe, in Zamfara State, Nigeria. All hostages were released by the bandits on 2 March 2021, though claims vary as to the negotiation methods used by the Nigerian government in order to facilitate their release.
The Afaka kidnapping took place on 11 March 2021, when armed Gunmen attacked Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, Igabi LGA, in Kaduna State and kidnapped 39 students just weeks after a similar attack in Jangebe, Zamfara State. The abducted comprised 23 females along with 16 males and was carried out late at night. It is the third incident of mass kidnapping from a school in northern Nigeria in the year 2021.
The Greenfield University kidnapping took place on 20 April 2021, when at least 20 students and 2 staff were kidnapped in Kasarami village, Chikun LGA, Kaduna State, Nigeria, during an attack by suspected armed bandits at Greenfield University. The remaining 14 students were released on 29 May 2021 after one month in captivity. This is Nigeria's fourth kidnapping from an academic institution in 2021, and the fifth since December 2020, coming five weeks and six days after the Afaka kidnapping, in which 39 students were abducted.
The bandit conflict in northwest Nigeria is an ongoing conflict between the country's federal government and various gangs and ethnic militias. Starting in 2011, the insecurity remaining from the conflict between the Fulani and Hausa ethnic groups quickly allowed other criminal and jihadist elements to form in the region.
Events in the year 2022 in Nigeria.
In mid-January 2022, a bandit gang killed over 50 people in Dankade, Kebbi State, Nigeria.
Last week, the minister of defence had a message for communities that have suffered attacks by armed gangs: Defend yourselves, don't just sit and be slaughtered like chickens. "We shouldn't be cowards," said Bashir Salihi Magashi, a retired major general. "I don't know why people are running away... They should stand. Let these people know that even the villagers have the competence and capability to defend themselves."