Nigeria's "kidnapping factory"
from jihadism to mafia crime
Attacks on Christian churches and schools
and kidnapping of teachers and students
Hundreds
of "missing" students
Schools
closed to avoid risk
UMEC-WUCT stands with its Colleagues in Nigeria and wishes an end to All Violent Acts
The federal
government has failed to respond first to Boko Haram's actions, the persecution
of believers, and now to the gangs. And only yesterday did the president
declare a "national emergency" due to kidnappings.
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by GIULIO ALBANESE
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International
media narratives often tend to associate kidnappings with the operations of
extremist Islamist militias active in the northeast of the country, starting
with the infamous Boko Haram and its offshoots. Undoubtedly, these armed groups
use kidnappings as a weapon of terror, a source of funding, and a propaganda
tool. Their incursions into villages in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa , as well as
attacks on schools, have left an indelible mark on collective memory, fueling a
widespread climate of fear and distrust of institutions. The 2014 Chibok
schoolgirl kidnapping —which brought an already deeply rooted tragedy to the
global stage—is just one of the most emblematic cases. The targeting, and to
some extent continuing to target (given the movement's smaller reach),
Christian communities responds to a logic parallel to "traditional"
persecution, but is no longer the primary objective of their actions.
An
anti-Christian perspective
Limiting
ourselves to this perspective of deplorable anti-Christian activity (much more
limited in the last five years but no less serious, as demonstrated by the
kidnappings of numerous priests and pastors), however, would be to ignore a
substantial part of the picture. In many regions of Nigeria, kidnappings are
now perpetrated also—and sometimes primarily—by armed gangs lacking a religious
ideology, motivated instead by a combination of social marginalization,
structural poverty, systemic corruption, and competition for control of
resources. Active primarily in the northwest, in the states of Kaduna, Zamfara
, Katsina, Sokoto, and Niger, these organizations pursue no theocratic
ambitions: rather, they build a predatory economy fueled by the security vacuum
and the fragility of territorial control. The terrain on which these dynamics
thrive is a long-term socioeconomic crisis, marked by extremely high levels of
youth unemployment, inefficient public administration, and the misuse of the
nation's immense wealth—oil, gas, coal, zinc, fertile lands—concentrated in the
hands of a select few. In this context, kidnapping becomes a veritable market:
farmers, traders, travelers, and students become commodities, kidnapped for
ransoms that fuel a vicious cycle of violence and impunity. Furthermore, the
line between organized crime and armed militancy is often blurred: tactical
alliances, temporary collaborations, and the exchange of weapons and
information make the borders extremely porous.
Anthropological
and historical dimension of conflicts
A
particularly relevant aspect concerns the anthropological and historical
dimension of conflicts in Nigeria. The country, populated by approximately 230
million people, is an ethnic and cultural archipelago where competition for
land and agricultural resources overlaps with tensions between pastoral and
agrarian communities—often simplified as a clash between "Fulani" and
"non-Fulani," when the reality is actually much more complex. In many
of these areas, the proliferation of small arms and the weakening of
traditional mediation structures have favored the transformation of local
conflicts into systemic violence. At the root of the kidnappings lies a
multifaceted system of insecurity, involving multiple actors. The government's
response—varying between military repression and attempts at negotiation—has
proven ineffective. And only yesterday, after more than 350 kidnappings in ten
days, the president declared a national "security" emergency
regarding the phenomenon.
Widespread
corruption erodes public trust and delegitimizes any institutional
intervention. Local communities, largely left to their own devices, develop
autonomous forms of self-defense, giving rise to civilian militias that, though
born for protective purposes, risk adding further levels of violence to an
already extremely complex landscape. Ordinary people pay the highest price:
broken families, traumatized children, communities forced to flee their homes.
A young, vibrant, and energetic country finds itself living with the fear of
travel, school, and the daily routine that elsewhere is taken for granted. Yet,
despite the severity of the phenomenon, Nigeria cannot be defined solely by its
wounds. It is also a place of extraordinary resilience, animated by community
networks, civil organizations, religious authorities, and traditional figures
who promote dialogue, reconciliation, and the protection of the most
vulnerable. Christians first and foremost, especially in the central and
southern states where attacks on priests continue, almost exclusively for
extortion. Authentically narrating the phenomenon of kidnappings in Nigeria
therefore means rejecting binaries—jihadists on one side, defenseless
populations on the other—and acknowledging the coexistence of multiple
Nigerias: that of globalized and dynamic metropolises, that of marginalized
rural areas, that of young people seeking a future, and that of those who,
deprived of alternatives, are sucked into the market of violence. Only by
recognizing this complexity is it possible to grasp the true drama of a country
that demands to be heard and understood before being overwhelmed by judgments
and reactions.
