More than ₦2.23 trillion was paid as ransom by victims of kidnapping incidents that occurred between May 2023 and April 2024, according to the Crime Experience and Perception Survey released by the National Bureau of Statistics.
This comes despite the substantial funding approved by the federal government for seven security agencies tasked with ensuring the safety and protection of citizens’ lives and property across the nation.
According to the NBS report, an estimated 51.89 million crime incidents were experienced by households, with 51 percent of these incidents perpetrated in rural locations of the country.
The crimes reported are theft of cars, burglary, theft of livestock, theft of crops, murder, theft of motor vehicles, home robbery and kidnapping. Theft of livestock was the most common crime at 18 percent, followed by crop theft at 15.8 percent, while vehicle theft was the least at 0.6 percent.
Regionally, the North-East reported the highest crime rate at 46.6 percent, followed by the North-West at 41.5 percent, and the South-West had the lowest at 22.4 percent. Meanwhile, among the households that experienced crime, only 25.7 percent reported those crimes to the police.
The report further revealed that the prevalence of kidnapping incidents was estimated at 2.24 million of which 1.41 million households reportedly experienced it. The report revealed that rural areas recorded more kidnapping incidences (1,668,104) than urban areas (567,850).
A further breakdown by zones also revealed that North-West had the highest cases of kidnapping, followed by North-Central; while the fewest incidents of kidnapping were recorded in the South-East. Meanwhile, among households that experienced kidnapping, 80.5 percent reported it to the police.
The report revealed that nearly half of the reported kidnapping cases occurred at or near homes (49.3%), followed by street abductions (19.4%), vehicle travel (15.2%), collective transportation (9.0%), and work or school areas (4.7%). Of the reported cases, 82.1% of victims were released, 12.8% were killed, 3.3% remained in captivity, and 1.3% were uncertain about the outcome.
On ransom, NBS noted that 65.0 percent of households that experienced kidnapping paid ransom totalling N2.23 trillion with an average amount of ₦2.7 million per incident. Households in urban areas paid an average of ₦3.7 million compared to ₦2.3 million in rural areas.
