From the north to the south, the problem of insecurity has continued to threaten the future of Nigeria with many persons kidnapped in the first half of 2021.
According to a report by Towntalk Solutions, there were 270 verified kidnap cases and over 2,600 kidnap victims in the first half of the year.
The report states that “the national spread of kidnappings emphasize the elevated risk level to the Nigeria economy.”
Towntalk is a data intelligence company that builds intelligent technology using “hard to collect” local data, captured in real-time. The company’s localized solutions deliver real-time insights to support proactive risk mitigation.
Read also: In Nigeria kidnapping is war on education
The report titled Nigeria Kidnapping Report: January to June 2021 highlighted the number of kidnapped cases in each geo-political zone and also gathered data on the motivation for the kidnappings, victim counts of kidnapping incidents, perpetrators and number of successful rescue operations conducted by Government Security Forces.
Towntalk obtains data for the monthly Security Intelligence Unit (SIU) reports from its network of national sources who share and verify location-based information using Towntalk’s suite of technology products.
The network uses an already available app called “Area! by Towntalk” to share real-time information and access location-based emergency responses. Area! can be downloaded here: bit.ly/3gPJ8cL.
In the first six months of the year, attacks by criminal gangs and bandits were launched on communities, schools, farmers, government, individual and road travellers.
Here are other highlights from the report.
May had the highest cases of verified Kidnap
Of the 270 cases of kidnapped that occurred within the first six months of the year, the highest case was recorded in May at 53, 52 cases in June, 49 cases in March, 42 cases in April and 38 and 36 cases in January and February respectively.
More people were kidnapped from the North West
From the data, the six geo-political zones in Nigeria all recorded kidnap cases within the first six months of the year. The North West had the highest with 69 cases, 68 in the North Central, 19 in the North East, 54 in the South West, 31 in the South-South, while southeast recorded 29 kidnap cases.
Northwest also recorded the highest kidnap victims
Northwest not only has the highest number of kidnap cases but also kidnap victims. Within the first six months, 1383 persons were abducted in the North West, 782 in North Central, 137 in the North East. In the South West, 152 persons were kidnapped and 86 persons were kidnapped in both the South-South and South East.
Most of the Kidnapped cases were random
Through the SIU, Towntalk was able to gather that 66.7 percent of the recorded cases were random. This implies that the motive for kidnap was not known i.e. unconnected to politically exposed individuals or perpetrated by terrorists. In some cases, no ransom was requested by the kidnappers. However, it was also observed that that 16.9 percent of the cases were connected to political reasons, 14.6 percent were carried out on corporate staff, assets and operation and just 1.9 percent was terrorism-related.
Number of rescued kidnapped victims
From the report, there were a number of successful kidnap rescue operations. In the North West, 140 persons were rescued, 3 persons and 25 persons were rescued in North Central and North East respectively. There were 36 persons rescued in the South East, 12 persons were rescued in the South West and 61 persons in the South-South were rescued in the first six months of the year.
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