By Abdulquadir Abdulwahid
On May 15, 2026, gunmen stormed three schools in Ogbomoso, Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State — Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Community Grammar School, and L.E.A. Primary School. They walked away with 46 pupils and teachers. One assistant headmaster, Adesiyan, was killed in the attack.
Weeks later, the victims remain in captivity.
A video emerged from the forest — the now-familiar, gut-wrenching footage of Mrs. Folawe Alamu, the vice-principal, her face pale with exhaustion, with the barrel of a gun pressed close to her as she begged authorities not to attempt a rescue.
That same week, in Ibadan, Mrs. Olaide Busayo Adegoke John-Paul and her 12-year-old twin boys were snatched in broad daylight, in the middle of the city. Their abandoned car sat on the roadside, doors flung open, as if the earth had simply swallowed them.
And in Kaduna, bandits tracked a retired Major General, Rabe Abubakar, and his wife from their point of departure, intercepting them along the Matazu axis in a meticulously planned operation.
This is not a string of isolated crimes. This is a system. And Nigeria is trapped inside it.
THE NUMBERS THAT SHOULD SHAKE US AWAKE
Between 2019 and 2025, Nigeria recorded an estimated 15,000 kidnapping incidents, according to SBM Intelligence. Between July 2024 and June 2025 alone, kidnappers collected ₦2.57 billion in ransoms. The statistics grow more harrowing with each passing month.
But numbers numb. So let us speak instead of what these numbers mean.
They mean that a teacher in Ogbomoso now goes to school knowing she may not return home. They mean that a farmer in Katsina eats dinner by 5 p.m. and flees into the forest before nightfall, abandoning land that once fed his children. They mean that a mother in Kaduna no longer knows whether her child’s school is a place of learning or a target.
WHO IS BEHIND THE GUN?
Here is where the conversation in Nigeria often derails. The instinct, born of pain and frustration, is to reach for easy labels, to name the perpetrators by religion or ethnicity. But that is not only inaccurate; it is dangerous.
The bandits terrorizing Ogbomoso, Kaduna, and Katsina are not practicing Islam. They are not representing any faith. What they do — kidnapping children, killing teachers, and filming weeping women for propaganda — is condemned by the same Qur’an that millions of Nigerian Muslims revere. The Qur’an commands the protection of the innocent, the freeing of captives, and the sanctity of life. Banditry, as it manifests in Nigeria, violates every principle of the faith.
Some bandits explicitly demand the release of their detained commanders as a condition for freeing hostages, not for religious reasons, but for the survival of their criminal enterprise.
As one elder involved in peace negotiations in Katsina put it:
“We established Islamic teaching programs to encourage repentance… to get bandits to show greater respect for human life over cattle.”
The issue is not faith. The issue is criminality organized on a scale that mimics insurgency.
And that criminality has sponsors. This is the uncomfortable truth.
BANDITRY AS A POLITICAL INSTRUMENT
We cannot speak honestly about insecurity in Nigeria without speaking about power.
The bandits in the forests do not operate in isolation. They need weapons. They need information. They need markets for stolen cattle and illegal minerals. They need safe routes and safe houses.
And those things are provided by someone. This is the deeper rot.
As one analyst wrote recently:
“Who finances these operations? Who supplies weapons? Who protects the sponsors?… Until these questions are fully answered, suspicions will continue to grow that powerful interests benefit from the climate of fear and instability.”
This is not conspiracy.
This is a pattern observed in every major conflict Nigeria has faced, from the Maitatsine riots to Boko Haram’s rise.
“Nigeria has paid dearly for ignoring early warning signs,” wrote Samuel Aruwan, former Commissioner for Internal Security in Kaduna State. “Each followed the same trajectory — dismissal, appeasement, escalation, catastrophe.”
When President Bola Tinubu deployed a specialized security unit to Ogbomoso and approved the recruitment of 1,000 forest guards, it was a necessary step.
But it is not enough.
The battle cannot be won only in the forests. It must be fought in the boardrooms, political circles, and financial networks that sustain the criminal economy.
WHEN COMMUNITIES TAKE MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS
Here is the paradox.
While the federal government struggles, some communities are finding solutions that work, not through military force, but through negotiation, trust, and an honest addressing of grievances.
In Kurfi, Katsina State, a local mediator named Dayyabu Abba-Kurfi brokered a peace pact with bandit gangs. The conditions were firm: no amnesty payments and no guns allowed in communities. In return, bandits gained access to markets, Islamic schools, and basic amenities such as potable water for themselves and their cattle.
The results?
Over 70 cows were returned. More than 1,000 abducted people were freed. Farmers returned to their land.
And one resident, Abubakar Gadawa, said simply:
“We now take off our clothes to sleep at night.”
This is not surrender. This is strategic realism.
It recognizes that bandits are not monsters from another planet; they are young men from marginalized nomadic communities who felt denied land ownership and watched their grievances ignored until they turned to violence.
Does this mean every bandit can be rehabilitated? No. Some are irredeemable criminals.
But the Kurfi example proves that a purely kinetic approach — raids, airstrikes, and more raids — cannot succeed alone.
As one researcher noted:
“The government is more interested in procuring peace than actually the process that will lead to permanent peace… How much does it cost to build a school? How much does it cost to build a borehole?”
A WAY FORWARD THAT IS NOT NAIVE
Let’s talk about practical solutions.
The path out of this crisis is neither simple nor comfortable. But it is visible.
1. Decentralize policing, but with accountability
Nigeria’s police force is a federal institution, yet governors carry the political burden of insecurity without operational control. State and local policing, modeled not on the abuses of the First Republic but on modern frameworks with robust oversight, would improve intelligence gathering and response times.
“Community policing initiatives will promote collaboration between security agencies and local communities,” says Abiodun Ramon Oseni, a former U.S. police officer.
2. Go after the sponsors, not just the foot soldiers
This is the hardest step because it threatens powerful people.
But until the financiers and informants are prosecuted, regardless of their status, the bandits will always have new weapons, new intelligence, and new escape routes.
3. Address the economic drivers of banditry
Poverty, unemployment, and lack of education are not excuses for violence. But they are recruitment tools.
Genuine economic development programs in affected regions will reduce the incentives for young men to pick up a rifle.
4. Support community-led peace initiatives
The Kurfi model worked because local people, not distant officials, led the process.
The federal and state governments should not merely tolerate such initiatives; they should support and resource them while maintaining clear red lines against impunity.
5. End the culture of ransom payments
This is the most controversial point because it touches grieving families directly.
But the economics are clear: between July 2024 and June 2025, kidnappers collected over ₦2.5 billion.
Every ransom paid funds the next kidnapping.
Breaking this cycle requires a coordinated national strategy and immense political courage.
A CALL TO ACTION
Now, let’s break the silence. There is a word for what Nigeria is experiencing.
It is not “insecurity,” a clinical term that dulls urgency.
It is state failure in specific, brutal pockets. But state failure is reversible.
It requires three things that Nigerians have in abundance: anger, intelligence, and stubborn hope.
To citizens: Stop normalizing the abnormal. When a child is kidnapped, do not scroll past. When a community is attacked, do not assume it is “their problem.” Demand accountability from your local government, your state government, and the presidency. Join or support lawful community security initiatives. Report suspicious activity.
To the media: Investigate the sponsors. Name the networks. Follow the money. Do not let the story become only about the victims; make it about the enablers.
To religious leaders (Muslim and Christian): Speak clearly. Declare that banditry is not jihad. It is not holy war. It is fasad — corruption and destruction upon the earth — condemned by every scripture. Lead interfaith initiatives to mediate and rehabilitate.
To the government: You have deployed specialized units. You have appointed national security advisers. Now go further. Prosecute a high-profile sponsor. Publish the assets recovered from bandit leaders. Demonstrate that this fight is not just about rescuing victims but about dismantling the entire criminal architecture.
CONCLUSION
We Are All Captives Until They Are Free
As this article is being read, Mrs. Folawe Alamu and 45 others remain somewhere in a forest, unsure whether anyone is coming. A retired general and his wife wait in a kidnappers’ den in Katsina. Children who should be learning multiplication tables are instead learning the sounds of gunfire.
Their captivity is our captivity.
A nation where any citizen can be snatched at any moment is not a nation; it is a waiting room for trauma.
The bandits are not Muslims. They are not Christians. They are not Hausa, Yoruba, or Fulani.
They are criminals who have exploited every weakness in our system — economic marginalization, political corruption, security failures, and a culture of silence.
The question is not whether Nigeria can defeat them. The question is whether Nigeria has the will to defeat itself first — its complacency, its tribalism, and its reluctance to touch the powerful.
The forest is dark. But the forest is not forever.
Let the rescue begin.
