A single terrorist organisation accounted for 90 per cent of all ransom reportedly paid to kidnappers in Nigeria between July 2025 and June 2026, despite criminal gangs and bandit groups making the bulk of ransom demands, a report by SBM Intelligence has revealed.
The finding is contained in the 2026 edition of SBM’s Economics of Nigeria’s Kidnap Industry report, which examined the actors benefiting financially from kidnapping across the country.
For the analysis, SBM said it attributed every ransom demand and payment to the actor identified in reports of each incident.
It explained that although its database records bandits and kidnappers as separate entities, it grouped bandits under the broader “kidnappers” category for the actor-level analysis.
According to the report, the category comprises the wider bandit and criminal-gang kidnapping network and is distinct from named ideological groups operating in the country.
The broad “kidnappers” category accounted for N13.492 billion, or 59 per cent, of the N22.856 billion ransom demanded nationwide during the period.
The amount was spread across 146 recorded cases, making the category the largest source of ransom demands.
However, the group collected only N719.4 million, representing a collection rate of 5.3 per cent.
SBM attributed the wide gap to the nature of ransom negotiations, noting that kidnappers often make high initial demands that are subsequently negotiated downwards or remain unpaid when victims are killed, rescued or released for token payments and food supplies.
It described the pattern as a high-volume, low-yield business spread across hundreds of incidents and thousands of victims.
The JAS faction of Boko Haram and allied cells recorded a markedly different pattern.
From just eight recorded incidents, the group demanded N9.205 billion, representing 40.3 per cent of the national total, and reportedly collected N7.0015 billion.
This represented a collection rate of 76.1 per cent.
SBM said the group alone accounted for about 90 per cent of all ransom actually paid in Nigeria during the period.
The report attributed the high collection rate to the group’s capacity to carry out mass abductions and hold large numbers of hostages, giving it greater bargaining power than smaller criminal gangs.
It cited the N5 billion reportedly paid following the abduction of 416 people in Ngoshe, Borno State, and the N2 billion reportedly paid after 315 children and staff were abducted from St Mary’s School, Papiri, Niger State.
Together, the two incidents accounted for N7 billion in ransom payments.
Other actors played a comparatively minor role in the ransom economy.
SBM said ISWAP recorded a modest ransom demand but a higher reported payment, a discrepancy it attributed to one incident in which cash was recovered or associated with a military operation rather than linked to a stated ransom demand.
As a result, it said ISWAP’s apparent collection rate was not meaningful and was left blank.
Fulani herder militias, IPOB and one cult-related case collectively accounted for less than one per cent of both ransom demanded and paid.
The report concluded that while kidnapping, measured by ransom demands, remained a crime involving a large number of criminal actors, actual ransom payments were heavily concentrated in the hands of one terrorist organisation.
It said the concentration of ransom payments, rather than the total amount demanded, should be a major concern for policymakers.
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