In just two weeks, Nigeria has been gripped by a wave of coordinated kidnappings stretching from the Federal Capital Territory to the far edges of the North-West, an unsettling synchrony of attacks that has plunged communities into fear and pushed the government into an emergency stance not seen in years.
It always begins quietly. One village wakes to gunfire. Another wakes to the absence of its children. A rice farm falls silent. A church is emptied. A boarding school is raided before dawn. A forest swallows 315 souls. Then, as if following an unseen signal, the stories multiply, reports Saturday Vanguard.
What has unfolded in the last fourteen days is not a random scatter of tragedies; it is a rhythm, an almost metronomic pattern of violence humming across the country like a national alarm bell only the abductors seem to hear clearly.
Nation’s Capital Breached, Confidence Shaken
Across Abuja, Niger, Kwara, Kebbi, Borno, Zamfara, Katsina, and Kaduna, kidnappings rose with a confidence that suggests the perpetrators were not just prepared, they were anticipating the moment. Nigeria has known cycles of crisis, but this period felt like a storm discovering its own strength.
When gunmen slip into the Federal Capital Territory, the nation’s power centre, and abduct seven mourners in Gidan Bijimi, including six girls and a sixteen-year-old boy, it signals a deeper unraveling.
The attack came just days after an attempted kidnap in Guto, where two suspects were killed. The message was unmistakable: the capital is no longer insulated. The notorious Abuja–Kaduna forest axis, long exploited by armed groups, seems to be awakening again.
Niger State: Ground Zero of Recent Horror
Niger State has lived through November like a community under siege. First came the abduction that stunned the entire country: St Mary’s School, Papiri. Before dawn, gunmen swept in on motorcycles and trucks, taking 303 students and twelve teachers. In a single morning, 315 people vanished into the bush.
Fifty would later find their way back, shaken but alive, yet more than 250 remained missing in the latest updates.
Days later, Palaita faced its own heartbreak as twenty-four farm workers, pregnant women among them, were taken straight from their fields. It is a storyline Nigerians know too well, yet one that never stops hurting.
Kwara’s Quiet Villages, Loud Nightmares
In Kwara, thirty-eight worshippers were abducted from a church in Eruku earlier in November and later released. But the peace was temporary. On the 24th and 25th, gunmen struck Isapa village, abducting between eleven and seventeen residents, including a pregnant woman, nursing mothers, and children.
Once-calm farming communities now measure danger by proximity to forested borders. Even with the federal government ordering round-the-clock surveillance over the region’s forests, fear hangs in the air like a lingering shadow.
Kebbi’s Schoolgirls and the Expanding Map of Fear
Kebbi suffered its own jolt when twenty-five schoolgirls were abducted from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga. One escaped immediately; the others were later rescued. The attack stretched the map of insecurity even further, touching states once thought peripheral to large-scale insurgent activity.
Meanwhile, across Borno, Zamfara, Katsina, and Kaduna, smaller but devastating incidents continued without pause. Nigeria’s insecurity no longer has a single hotspot; it has become a sprawling landscape.
A Lucrative Enterprise, A Late Awakening
Security experts have long warned that kidnapping and banditry have evolved into a sophisticated, profitable enterprise, an underworld economy that continues to innovate and expand. While official responses swayed between denial and cautious optimism, criminal networks grew bolder and more coordinated.
Then came a shift. Whether triggered by the sheer volume of attacks, the humiliation of breaches reaching the capital, or the ripple effect of international commentary; including, some argue, remarks by US President Donald Trump, the government abruptly stiffened its approach. Deployments increased. Directives became sharper. The rhetoric hardened. But this awakening arrived after the criminals had already widened the battlefield.
Commentaries From Concerned Citizens
Arc. Bello Muhammed, Architect: “We understand that pressure from foreign powers might be brewing more trouble for the country. While some believe this has to do with international politics, I take it as a leadership failure on the part of the federal government as well. The enemies are simply taking advantage. The government should take bold steps in exposing and eradicating the internal saboteurs conniving with the enemies to score cheap political goals. This was the exact script that ousted former President Goodluck Jonathan. It’s all politics taken too far.”
Sewhude Akande, DG, Badagry Tourism Development Centre (BTDC): “The attacks are not exactly ‘renewed’; they have only become more visible following President Trump’s statement. His comments have drawn fresh attention from Nigerians and the media to a crisis that has been ongoing for years.
The recent kidnapping of 25 schoolgirls and the killing of a military general may well be the terrorists’ way of signalling that they are not deterred by the threat of US intervention. Instead of their usual assaults on remote villages, they appear to be carrying out more high-profile and symbolic attacks meant to show defiance and attract maximum attention.”
Comrade A. Ezeonara, Political/Human Rights Activist: “The renewed attacks, despite the threat, prove that the Federal Government has no concrete plans to end insurgency. VP Kashim Shettima said during the campaign that if they won, PBAT would handle the economy while he would be at the forefront of containing insecurity in Nigeria. But since they were sworn in, how many terrorists have they caught, tried, and jailed? On no account should non-state actors overwhelm government authorities, whose primary responsibility is to protect lives and property.”
The Declared Emergency and Its Weight
This is why the recently declared state of emergency on security lands with both relief and unease. A national security emergency is not symbolic, it reshapes governance. It expands the operational latitude of security agencies and shortens the usually long distance between intelligence and action. It gives states clearer room to reinforce local defence structures. Crucially, it could fast-track terrorism trials through military tribunals, cases that once dragged for years might now conclude in weeks.
But with expanded powers come heavy risks. Civil liberties may narrow. Oversight must tighten. The line between urgency and excess becomes thin. A country under siege cannot afford administrative hesitation, yet it cannot afford unchecked force either.
A Country Holding Its Breath
Nigeria now stands at a crossroads: the government says it has finally awakened; the criminals show no sign of slowing. Communities brace themselves for the next sound in the night. And the country wonders whether this late awakening, formalised through an emergency decree, can truly overpower a crisis that has developed its own momentum, or whether this turbulent fortnight will be remembered as the moment Nigeria realised the storm was far deeper than insecurity itself.
