Abuja (AFP) – Criminal groups in Nigeria raised nearly $6 million in ransom payments in the last year, a report said Wednesday, with two mass kidnappings by Boko Haram responsible for nearly 90 percent of the total.

Abductions have become a key moneymaker for criminal groups in Africa's most populous country, especially jihadists and non-ideological armed gangs known as bandits.

Some 7.78 billion naira in ransom was paid between July 2025 and June 2026, the report, from Lagos-based consultancy SBM Intelligence, said – more than triple the 2.56 billion naira paid during the same period last year.

At least 7,825 people were abducted, up 66 percent compared with the same period last year, based on SBM's figures, which may be conservative since many victims do not want to speak about ransom payments, which are illegal in Nigeria.

A minimum of 1,142 people were killed, including 895 civilians, it added.

Security forces are overstretched fighting a 17-year jihadist insurgency in the northeast and banditry in northwest and central Nigeria.

Farmers and herders clash over land in the centre of the country while a simmering separatist movement festers in the southeast.

The northwest, increasingly home to jihadists as well, remains the hardest hit by the kidnapping crisis, SBM said.

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