The National Bureau of Statistics’ Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey (CESPS) revealed that Nigerians paid a staggering ₦2.23 trillion in ransoms to kidnappers between May 2023 and April 2024.
The report underscored the worsening security crisis across the country and its devastating financial impact on households. According to the survey, 65% of households affected by kidnapping were forced to pay ransoms to secure the release of their loved ones, with the average ransom paid standing at ₦2.67 million per incident.
The CESPS recorded a total of 51.89 million crime incidences experienced by households during the period under review.
The North-West region recorded the highest number of crimes, with over 14.4 million incidents, followed by the North-Central region at 8.8 million. Rural areas were more affected than urban areas, with rural households experiencing 26.53 million crime incidents compared to 25.36 million in urban settings.
The North-West geopolitical zone accounted for 63.5% of all kidnapping incidents nationally, with 54.5% of all ransom payments also made in that region, reflecting the dominant role of bandits in Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis.
However, this report has been contested. An independent analysis by TheCable compared the NBS figures against data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, which recorded only 634 kidnapping incidents across Nigeria during the same period, a figure vastly different from the NBS estimate of over 2.2 million incidents.
Critics noted that the NBS methodology relied on a perception survey rather than verified incident records, raising questions about the accuracy of the exaggerated figures.