The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that Nigerians paid a total of N2.23tn as ransom over the 12 months between May 2023 and April 2024.
This sum was paid by homes victimised by kidnapping events, highlighting the country’s expanding criminal threat.
According to the NBS’s most recent Criminal Experience and Security Perception Survey report, an estimated 51.89 million criminal occurrences were reported throughout Nigerian homes during the reference period.
According to the poll, the North-West region had the greatest crime rate, with 14.4 million reported instances, followed by the North-Central region with 8.8 million incidences.
In contrast, the South-East area recorded the fewest crimes, with 6.18 million events.
The data also found that rural areas were more affected by crime than urban areas, with 26.53 million crime events in rural homes vs. 25.36 million in urban areas.
The report underscored the seriousness of kidnapping, stating that 4.14 million homes have experienced home robbery. Sixty-five percent of those kidnapped were compelled to pay a ransom to gain their release.
The average ransom paid was N2.67 million, leading to a total of N2.23 trillion paid by Nigerians to criminals over the past year.
Despite this, only 36.3% of individuals who were victims of home robberies reported the occurrences to authorities, with a similarly low reporting rate for kidnapping.
The report read, “Nationally, an estimated 51,887,032 crime incidences were experienced by households. The North-West (14,402,254) reported the highest incidences of crime at the household level, followed by the North-Central (8,771,400), while the South-East (6,176,031) reported the least. The result also shows that the crime incidence in the rural area (26,526,069) was higher than that of the urban area (25,360,963).
“In Nigeria, 4,142,174 households experienced home robbery. Less than half (36.3 percent) of the households who were victims of home robbery reported their experience to the police. Among households that experienced kidnapping incidents, 65.0 percent paid a ransom.
“The average amount paid as ransom was N2,670,693, with an estimated total ransom of N2,231,772,563,507 paid within the reference period.”
Many victims indicated a lack of trust in law enforcement and the idea that police intervention would result in ineffective action as the primary reasons for not reporting.
According to the poll, 21.4% of Nigerians were victims of individual crimes, with phone theft being the most common, impacting 13.8% of the population.
While 90% of phone theft victims reported the crime to the police, only 50% were happy with the police response.
In addition, the poll estimated that 1.4 million Nigerians had been victims of sexual assaults, with the majority of occurrences taking place in someone else’s or the victim’s house.
Only over 22.7% of sexual assault victims reported the crimes to the police.
Only 33.1 percent of Nigerians reported that security agencies responded to emergency calls within 30 minutes.
The survey disclosed that approximately 4 out of 10 households interacted with state or local security forces during the survey period, with half of these households contacting the Nigerian Police.
However, satisfaction with police responses was regrettably low, especially in cases of livestock and crop theft, where only 42.9 percent and 42.4 percent of victims expressed satisfaction, respectively.
In many rural areas, local vigilante groups were seen as a more reliable source of security.
