November 25, 2025

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Mass Kidnapping in Nigeria Demonstrates Growing Unrest

(AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Approximately 250 students and 12 teachers remain in captivity following a mass kidnapping last Friday at a Catholic school in northern Nigeria’s Niger State, marking the second major kidnapping in the country in the past week. Reportedly, around 50 students managed to escape and return to their families, according to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The kidnapping a week prior involved armed gunmen storming a girl’s boarding school in Kebbi State, abducting 25 girls and killing the school’s vice principal. This troubling trend highlights Nigeria’s heightened security crisis, in which kidnapping has become central. Nigerian security forces are unable to protect civilians from the growing number of terrorist and insurgent groups operating on Nigerian soil and across its borders, with networks stretching throughout the region.

The kidnappings are reminiscent of the 276 Chibok girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014, which sparked the worldwide #BringBackOurGirls movement. However, while the 2014 kidnapping was motivated by ideological and strategic reasons, armed bandits have increasingly adopted kidnapping as an avenue to collect ransom. Pope Leo XIV appealed for the students’ release, urging during his weekly prayer vigil, for the Nigerian authorities to “take appropriate and timely decisions to ensure their release.” He went on to say, “I feel great pain, especially for the young men and women who have been abducted and for their anguished families.”

Nigeria has been in the news recently, especially after U.S. President Donald Trump weighed in last Friday, commenting, “I think Nigeria is a disgrace. The whole thing is a disgrace. They’re killing people by the thousands. It’s a genocide.” Weeks earlier, Trump had commented on Nigeria as well, threatening to take action if nothing was done to prevent what he said was the widespread slaughter of Christians. Trump said, “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.” However, it remains unclear exactly how serious the Trump administration is about putting together plans for a future military operation in Nigeria. Experts have warned about sending U.S. troops into a counterinsurgency-style mission without a clear strategy for what the primary objectives or goals of the mission are overall, especially since many regional experts have pointed out that these groups also happen to target non-Christian Nigerians. It was during Trump’s first stint in office that four U.S. troops were killed in neighboring Niger, where they were on a joint patrol with Nigerien forces. The Islamic State Greater Sahara (ISGS) was responsible for the Tongo Tongo ambush.

Multiple jihadist groups, as well as bandits and other violent non-state actors, remain active throughout Nigeria. Just recently, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), al Qaeda’s Sahelian branch, claimed its first attacks in the country. Even if the Trump administration does not send troops, it is crucial that Washington assist Abuja with security cooperation and building partner capacity assistance. Across sub-Saharan Africa, Western countries have pulled back manpower and resources, and local security forces have been underequipped and overwhelmed. The result has been jihadist groups swallowing larger and larger swaths of territory and enacting their own shadow governance. There is growing concern that terrorist groups operating in ungoverned spaces in the Sahel, Lake Chad Basin, or elsewhere in the region, could plot an external terrorist attack against the West.

The abductions illustrate that the security threat landscape across Nigeria, particularly in its northern regions, continues to flourish through the convergence of criminal bandits, jihadist insurgents, ethno-religious militants, and the government’s struggle to contain the overstretched security environment. According to the Institute for Security Studies, more than 1,680 students, ages five through 11, have been abducted throughout Nigeria since the Chibok kidnapping, and Boko Haram has abducted approximately 400 people, mostly women and children, in 2024 alone.

Over more than a decade, jihadist groups — Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Ansaru — have entrenched themselves throughout various parts of the country, expanding their influence and directly challenging the Nigerian state. Alongside them, armed criminal bandit groups have taken hold in northwest and north central hotspots such as Niger (the region of the most recent kidnapping), Zamfara, Katsina, and Kaduna States. Both jihadist groups and armed bandit groups have used violent tactics, like kidnapping, to carve out de facto zones of control and finance their operations, often times blurring the line between criminal and terrorist activities.

Kidnapping for ransom has turned into an economic model for bandits and jihadists alike. According to security forces in the region, the kidnappers conduct detailed planning, such as surveilling schools and mapping out escape routes. Then, large armed teams execute raids at vulnerable hours — such as at night and early morning — overwhelming lightly protected schools. Captives are then transported to remote hideouts, such as deep in the forests or other areas where state forces struggle to reach. Once in captivity, hostage negotiations are handled via burner phones and encrypted communications, and ransom is paid through informal, hard-to-trace channels such as hawalas, an informal value transfer system that evades a traditional banking system. According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, Nigerians had paid these groups approximately $1.42 billion in ransoms from May 2023 to April 2024, demonstrating how much kidnapping for ransom has become such a profitable industry. However, the social cost is high: recurring abductions fuel widespread fear, disrupt education, and drive up school absences.

The latest kidnapping underscores systematic challenges in preventing these attacks. Efforts by the Nigerian government, including rescue missions and intelligence-led operations, remain hampered by underpaid law enforcement, weak coordination, and difficult terrain. Even though Nigeria endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, an inter-governmental initiative protecting schools and students, in 2015, implementation remains inadequate, leaving many schools — particularly rural — vulnerable. Meanwhile, the government's “no ransom” policy, in which Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu has rejected the idea of paying ransom to these groups, has not been able to curb the critical issue. As such, local governments have begun to approach bandit groups to negotiate peace deals, exemplifying frustrations with the federal government’s current approach. According to Nigerian newspapers, 20 of 34 local governments in Katsina State have reportedly entered into a truce with bandits in the region, in which hostages would be released for prisoners. Reactions to the alleged agreement are mixed, with some expressing cautious optimism, hoping to restore their livelihoods, while others remain wary that peace could hold.