Nigeria ransoms reached $5.8m in year, study says

Criminal groups in Nigeria received 7.78 billion naira, or $5.8 million, in ransom payments between July 2025 and June 2026, Lagos-based consultancy SBM Intelligence said in a report released Wednesday.

SBM said the amount was more than triple the 2.56 billion naira paid in the same period a year earlier. It said at least 7,825 people were abducted, up 66 percent, and at least 1,142 people were killed, including 895 civilians.

The consultancy said its figures may be conservative because many victims do not want to discuss ransom payments, which are illegal in Nigeria.

SBM said two mass kidnappings blamed on Boko Haram drove 7 billion naira in payments, almost 90 percent of the total. It identified them as the abduction of more than 400 people from Ngoshe in Borno state and the kidnapping of about 300 pupils and staff from St Mary's Catholic school in Niger state.

AFP reported at the time, citing intelligence sources, that the government paid at least 2 billion naira to Boko Haram for the release of the St Mary's victims. Nigerian authorities denied that payment.

SBM said mass abduction has become the dominant form of kidnapping, with 80 percent of victims taken in group seizures. It called for action to disrupt the financial flows behind insurgency and for economic stabilisation to reduce recruitment by armed groups.

Nigeria's security forces are fighting a 17-year jihadist insurgency in the northeast and armed gangs known as bandits in the northwest and centre. Farmers and herders also clash over land in the centre, and a separatist movement continues in the southeast.

Security and the economy are expected to be major issues in Nigeria's January elections, where President Bola Tinubu is seeking a second term.