There is a particular kind of silence that follows a kidnapping. It is not the absence of sound, but the absence of certainty. Phones stay charged. Families stop sleeping. Every unknown number becomes both hope and dread. In that silence, the Nigerian citizen is reduced to a negotiable asset—waiting, not for justice, but for a price.

In the concluding part of last week’s The Sunday Stew, I had promised that today we would take a deep dive into the paradox of living under the shadow of self-inflicted disasters. In reflecting on the approach to adopt, my mind went back to the world-acclaimed scholar, Ali Mazrui.

In 1986, Mazrui — then a towering figure at the University of Jos and Binghamton — released his seminal documentary, The Africans: A Triple Heritage. Mazrui argued that the African identity was a product of three interlocking legacies: the Indigenous, the Islamic, and the Western.

Nigeria, however, appears to be shaped by a far more dangerous convergence of forces.

We are currently shadowed by what I call The Insecurity Triad—a three-headed monster of Kidnapping, Banditry, and Terrorism that threatens to dismantle the very heritage Mazrui celebrated. We begin today with kidnapping, what I have chosen to call the ‘Ransom Economy.’

From Global Origins to the Nigerian Evolution

Kidnapping is not a Nigerian invention. Historically, it has evolved from sporadic opportunism to structured enterprise. In the 19th-century United States, abductions were mostly local or motivated by personal vendettas. However, the 1932 abduction of Charles Lindbergh Jr. marked a global turning point, demonstrating the potential for ransom at a national scale and prompting the US Federal Kidnapping Act.

Today, the more pressing parallels lie in the “narco-states” of Latin America. In Mexico, cartels use “express kidnappings” to drain bank accounts and mass-abduct migrants to extort their families.

In Colombia, what began as a tool for political “taxation” by groups like the FARC eventually became an outsourced criminal market. Whether it is a drug lord in Michoacán or a bandit leader in the Kuyambana Forest, the logic is identical: kidnapping is the “venture capital” or liquidity that funds larger insurgencies.

Nigeria’s journey followed a similar, albeit accelerated, trajectory. Prior to the year 2000, incidents were sporadic. By the early 2000s, the Niger Delta became the first laboratory for industrial-scale abductions.

It is essential to note that the genesis of this trend was rooted in grievance rather than simple greed. In those early days, the targeting of oil workers was a violent form of protest against multinational oil companies accused of systemic environmental degradation and the utter neglect of oil-bearing communities. What began as a desperate cry for resource control, however, soon mutated. The “grievance model” of Niger Delta provided the blueprint for the “profit model” we see today nationwide, as criminal networks realised that human liberty was the most liquid asset they could trade.

The Human Face of the Ransom Economy

Behind the statistics are real people, real trauma, and real negotiations.

In 2021, a friend of Sundiata Post, Mrs. Elsie Iloelunachi, a businesswoman, travelled from Abuja to Onitsha to purchase goods. On her return journey, somewhere in Kogi State, her vehicle was hijacked. While a few passengers managed to escape, she was not so fortunate. She was marched into the forest and held for a few days.

According to her account, she survived partly because she could communicate in the language of her abductors. She pleaded. She negotiated. Eventually, the kidnappers sent an account number to her husband. He raised the money and transferred it.

When she later came to my office to recount her experience, the psychological toll was unmistakable. She was visibly shaken, emotionally and mentally scarred, yet she still counted herself lucky. She had returned alive, without physical injury or molestation—a “best-case outcome” in a system where survival is increasingly uncertain.

In another case, a past president of the Rotary Club of Abuja CBD travelled to Lagos on official duty. On his return journey to Abuja, his vehicle was hijacked in Ondo State. What followed was panic—not just within his family, but across the Rotary community. The club and district mobilised. Funds were raised. Networks were activated. For weeks, uncertainty loomed until he eventually regained his freedom.

There is also the growing pattern of attacks on schools and religious institutions—spaces once considered sanctuaries. One particularly harrowing case involved St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary School in Papiri, Niger State, on November 21, 2025. Gunmen abducted 315 people, including nursery pupils as young as five. Parents received intermittent, terrifying calls from the abductors, alternating between threats and negotiation. Some students escaped into the surrounding forest, while others were released in staged groups over the next month. Families, like that of 62-year-old Dauda Chekula who lost four grandchildren, endured unimaginable trauma, with no immediate government support.

Another alarming example occurred in Sokoto, where a cleric and his students were abducted during a nighttime raid. The cleric negotiated tirelessly to secure the children’s release, demonstrating the terrifying human calculus families now face in a system where trust in protection is fragile.

The Ransom Economy has moved from the lonely highway to the family dinner table. The early 2024 abduction of the Al-Kadriyar sisters in Bwari, FCT, remains a scar on the national psyche. The subsequent killing of one daughter, Nabeehah, to “accelerate” payment proved that even the seat of power in Abuja was no longer a fortress. From coordinated street-level raids in Katampe to the surgical, contract-style snatching of professionals in Port Harcourt, kidnappers have weaponised the doorstep.

The systematic targeting of the clergy represents a war on the soul of the nation. In the last year alone, at least 17 Catholic priests were abducted. Kidnappers demanded a total of ₦460 million with approximately ₦70 million verified as paid by desperate parishioners and families. The case of Fr. Mikah Suleiman in Sokoto and the heroic sacrifice of Fr. Thomas Oyode in Edo—who reportedly traded his own liberty for that of his students—illustrate that for the kidnapper, the Church is not a house of God, but a guaranteed source of crowd-funded negotiation.

These stories are not isolated. They are fragments of a larger system—one that has turned fear into currency and human beings into collateral.

Why Kidnapping is ‘Attractive’

We must ask: why is Nigeria a global outlier in this menace? The answer lies in the collapse of the legitimate economy. When a state cannot provide viable means of income, the ‘Ransom Economy’ fills the vacuum. For a youth in a marginalised rural community or an urban slum, the return on investment (ROI) of a kidnapping raid far outweighs years of manual labour.

However, we cannot ignore the role of greed. The industry has attracted “investors”—informants, logistics providers, and even rogue elements within formal structures—who see kidnapping as a high-reward, low-risk business. This combination of economic despair and predatory greed has turned a crime into a career path.

The Ransom Economy by the Numbers

To understand the financial scale of this crisis, we look to data provided by SBM Intelligence for the period of July 2024 to June 2025. During this window, the total ransom demanded by criminal networks reached a staggering ₦48 billion (approximately $31 million), reflecting a high-volume strategy. Out of this, ₦2.57 billion (roughly $1.66 million) was verified as paid—a 144% year-on-year increase in actual payments.

These funds were extracted from 4,722 victims across 997 reported incidents. Most chilling is the lethality rate: 762 deaths were recorded, meaning nearly one person died for every reported incident. This reveals a “naira-to-dollar trap”; as the naira devalues, kidnappers become more aggressive, demanding higher sums simply to maintain their purchasing power for black-market arms and logistics.

Why Nigeria?

How can a country with so much promise and capacity be reduced to a state where it cannot protect its citizens? The answer lies in our “ungoverned spaces” and a centralised polici”g structure that has created a dangerous intelligence gap. When the state is physically absent, the criminal becomes the de facto sovereign.

Ali Mazrui’s Triple Heritage was about the synthesis of culture to build a future. Our Insecurity Triad is about the collision of forces that destroy it. To protect her citizens, Nigeria must re-occupy her own land. We must:

•Decentralise Intelligence

•Close Ungoverned Spaces

•Bankrupt the Triad

Every abduction is a withdrawal from the fragile bank of national trust. If we do not act decisively, the Ransom Economy will continue to fund even more destructive forces.

Join me next week for Part II, where we examine the Rural Siege of Banditry.

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Trust it is sacred. Stay seasoned

•Max Amuchie, CEO of Sundiata Post, writes The Sunday Stew, a weekly syndicated column on faith, character, and the forces that shape society, with a focus on Nigeria and Africa in a global context.

X - @MaxAmuchie | Email: max.a@sundiatapost.com | Tel: +234(0)8053069436.

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