In a troubling escalation of Nigeria’s security crisis, 28 individuals traveling to an annual Islamic gathering in central Plateau State were violently abducted by armed assailants on Sunday night, according to local sources reporting to the BBC. The victims, comprising women and children among other passengers, were ambushed while their bus traversed between rural villages.
This latest incident occurs merely 24 hours after Nigerian authorities secured the release of 130 students and educators from a Catholic boarding school in Niger State, where they had been held captive since last month. A Plateau-based journalist confirmed that families of the newly kidnapped victims have already begun receiving ransom demands from the perpetrators, whose identities remain unknown. Official authorities have not yet issued any public statement regarding the abduction.
Criminal factions referred to locally as ‘bandits’ have increasingly employed kidnapping-for-ransom as a primary revenue strategy throughout northern and central Nigeria. While official policy prohibits monetary payments to secure hostages’ freedom, such transactions have become the de facto resolution method in numerous cases, effectively bankrolling these criminal enterprises.
Notably, security analysts emphasize that these bandit operations remain distinct from the protracted Islamist insurgency raging in Nigeria’s northeast, where jihadist organizations have engaged in armed conflict with government forces for over a decade.
The persistent security challenges have drawn international scrutiny, particularly after controversial remarks from former US President Donald Trump in November threatened military intervention. Recent diplomatic engagements between Nigerian Information Minister Mohammed Idris and US officials have reportedly eased tensions, with Idris announcing that bilateral relations have been ‘largely resolved’ and strengthened.
Concurrently, Nigeria’s federal government unveiled new security measures including the deployment of specially trained forest guards to secure remote areas and forest hideouts used by criminal organizations, augmenting existing military operations across affected regions.