Insecurity in Nigeria

Available for over a year

It has a population of 215 million but very few Nigerians have been untouched by incidents of violence and lawlessness which appear to have increased in recent months. Schools, colleges, churches, trains and roads have all been targeted, and people report feeling unsafe wherever they go. We hear the anguish of relatives involved in the recent armed attack on a church in Ondo state in south-west Nigeria, in which forty people were killed and dozens wounded. A young woman describes the terror of being abducted with her sister and other students from a residential college at night, and being made to walk for four hours into the bush, where they were held for almost two months. The kidnappers demanded a ransom which the authorities refused to pay, leaving their desperate parents searching for another way to secure the release of their children. (Photo: Friday and his daughter Rejoice. Credit: Sani family)