Early last month, Nigeria’s government announced the largest single-day hostage rescue in its history, with the freeing of 300 people who had been taken in raids in two north central states. Celebrations were short-lived. Barely a fortnight later, gunmen abducted up to 600 worshippers from a mosque in Niger state. Nigerians paid kidnappers nearly $6m in ransoms in the year to June, according to a new report from the Lagos-based consultancy SBM Intelligence – more than triple the total in the previous 12-month period. More than 7,800 people were abducted, a two-thirds increase, and more than 1,100 killed, including almost 900 civilians.
When Boko Haram abducted almost 300 schoolgirls from their school in Chibok, Borno state in 2014, it made headlines worldwide. Yet around 45 children, mostly aged between two and five, remain missing after they were snatched from schools in Mussa, in north-eastern Borno state, in May. There is growing concern that kidnappings may be spreading to new areas. Forty-six students and staff were abducted from three schools in the south-western state of Oyo in the same month; they were rescued in July.
The kidnappings are just one facet of Nigeria’s multiple and overlapping security crises, which may be key to January’s presidential election. Boko Haram, its Islamic State West Africa Province offshoot and other jihadist groups are battling each other as well as terrorising civilians.
In the middle belt and parts of the south-west, violence pits predominantly Muslim Fulani herders against largely Christian farming communities. Climate stress and environmental despoliation are intensifying competition over land and resources. Because the two sides fall largely along religious lines, Donald Trump and American evangelicals have presented this conflict as if it were Nigeria’s entire security crisis, rather than one part of it.
The repercussions of abductions can be devastating even if hostages come home. Around 100 Chibok girls remain missing, while some returnees face rejection. Kidnapping also drives displacement, economic disruption and school closures, especially affecting girls in a country with a median age of just 18 and pervasive mass youth unemployment.
Many schools in Africa’s most populous country have simply closed. A safe schools protection initiative was laudable, but has limited effect without broader security improvements. Successive governments have failed to curb the violence. An overly centralised state and an overstretched security apparatus leave too many of Nigeria’s 240 million people unprotected. State abandonment is forcing communities to seek their own accommodation with the perpetrators.
US strikes and a short-lived troop deployment were misconceived, with Mr Trump casting the complex violence, which has killed many Muslims too, as “Christian genocide”. Nigeria needs outside support rather than intervention. President Bola Tinubu announced a major military expansion and pay rise in July. But Christopher Musa, the country’s defence minister, has said that the military can only be 30% of the solution; 70% is socioeconomic. The army’s operational failures and grim human rights record, and the danger of other essentials being cut to pay for boosting defence, also counsel caution. Nigeria’s children and adults can’t be protected without better intelligence, improved collaboration among security institutions and with communities, and, above all, a fairer social and economic deal.
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