Editorial: The Ransom Paradox Nigeria Refuses to Confront

Nigeria’s position on ransom payments rests on a sound principle: Every ransom paid strengthens criminal organisations by financing the purchase of more weapons, and encouraging more kidnappings. Every naira handed to kidnappers today may finance tomorrow’s abduction.

Yet, another reality is far more uncomfortable. It is a reality experienced daily by families whose loved ones have disappeared into forests, insurgent camps, and criminal enclaves across Nigeria. The state asks them not to pay. The same state often cannot prevent the abduction nor guarantee the rescue of the victim.

For years, successive governments have urged Nigerians to reject ransom payments as a matter of national security. The argument is strategically sound. Kidnapping has evolved into one of Nigeria’s most profitable criminal economies, sustaining terrorist groups, insurgent groups, and organised kidnapping networks across several regions. Every successful payment reinforces that economy and makes future attacks more likely.

But public policy cannot exist only in theory. It must also survive contact with human reality.

For many women and girls held captive, every additional day increases the risk of rape, forced marriage, sexual slavery, and repeated abuse. Men and boys frequently endure forced labour, torture, starvation, beatings, and execution. Children lose months or years of their education while entire families descend into financial ruin attempting to negotiate for survival.

For parents, spouses, and siblings, this is not an abstract debate about national security. They know that every phone call may be the last and that every delay may carry irreversible consequences. It is therefore unsurprising that many families choose life over policy.

Critics often ask why families continue paying ransom despite repeated warnings, but the more humane question is whether society has offered them a credible alternative.

Military rescue operations have succeeded in some high-profile cases, and security forces continue to make sacrifices under extremely dangerous conditions. However, they remain the exception rather than the experience of most victims. Across vast areas of Nigeria, rescue is uncertain, negotiations are prolonged, intelligence is limited, and families are frequently left to navigate kidnappers alone. That gap creates an impossible moral burden.

The law tells a father not to pay, but his daughter remains in captivity and the government cannot tell him when, or whether, she will come home. What should he choose?

Many policymakers evaluate ransom through the lens of national security. Families experience it through the lens of survival. Both perspectives are legitimate, but they collide in painful ways.

The contradiction becomes even sharper where governments contemplate criminalising ransom payments. Such laws may satisfy an important strategic objective, but without dramatically improving prevention, intelligence, rapid response, and hostage rescue capability, they risk punishing victims twice. First, by failing to protect them. Second, by denying them the only option they believe remains.

No family should ever have to choose between financing organised crime and abandoning someone they love. The responsibility for breaking this cycle belongs to the state, not to traumatised families.

A credible anti-ransom policy requires far more than a legal prohibition. It demands professional policing, intelligence-driven operations, rapid hostage recovery capabilities, functioning emergency response systems, stronger border control, disruption of kidnapping finances, and sustained prosecution of those who organise and profit from this industry.

Only then can the government reasonably ask citizens to bear the enormous moral cost of refusing to pay ransom. Until that day arrives, Nigeria’s ransom debate will remain trapped between principle and reality. Ending ransom payments begins with ending the conditions that make ransom appear to be the only path home.