The statement by the National Security Advisor (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, urging Nigerians to stop paying ransom to kidnappers may be well-intentioned, but it misses the critical point.
Development Diaries reports that while recently receiving 60 kidnapped victims rescued from captivity in Zangon Kataf, Southern Kaduna, the NSA, Ribadu, has asked Nigerians to stop giving money to kidnappers and bandits.
Between May 2023 and April 2024, Nigerians paid a staggering N2.23 trillion in ransom to kidnappers, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The figure, captured in the agency’s latest Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey, underscores the alarming scale of kidnapping in the country.
Many citizens resort to ransom payment not out of choice, but as a desperate response to a broken system.
Instead of focusing on the actions of frightened families trying to save their loved ones, the conversation should shift to the root cause: the government’s failure to provide security and viable alternatives.
When families are left with no hope of timely rescue or credible support, ransom payments become a last resort in a country where safety is not guaranteed.
What has emboldened kidnappers is not just ransom payments but years of poor intelligence coordination, delayed rescue responses, and a glaring lack of political will to bring criminal networks to justice.
These systemic gaps have created an environment where bandits operate freely, knowing that state responses are often reactive and inconsistent.
Rather than holding citizens responsible for trying to survive, it is time to hold leadership accountable for not being proactive enough in dismantling the structures that allow these crimes to flourish.
No citizen should have to choose between losing a loved one and going into crushing debt. The real dilemma for many families is not whether to pay, but whether the government will act in time, or at all.
The silence, inaction, or delayed interventions from security operatives in many abduction cases have broken trust in the state’s capacity to protect lives.
It is unjust to ask families to ‘do nothing’ when the system offers them nothing in return.
Development Diaries therefore calls on the NSA and security agencies to publish clear, transparent, and time-bound action plans on how kidnapping and banditry will be tackled.
Citizens need to know that there are concrete strategies beyond rhetoric, strategies that involve improved intelligence, faster responses, and punishment for security lapses.
Only then can the public be reassured enough to abandon the painful decision to negotiate with criminals.
Photo source: Nuhu Ribadu
