By Abdullahi Bilal

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and one of its richest in natural resources, is bleeding. Between 2021 and April 2026, no fewer than 32,667 Nigerians were killed and 23,187 were kidnapped in incidents of mass atrocities across the country, a horrifying average of 15 preventable deaths every single day for six consecutive years.

The crisis is accelerating. In the first four months of 2026 alone, at least 3,693 people were killed and 1,505 abducted. In February 2026 alone, 624 Nigerians were killed and 419 abducted in just 28 days. In the first half of 2025, 2,266 people were killed by bandits and insurgents, already exceeding the total for all of 2024. These are not just numbers; they are mothers, fathers, students, peasants, farmers, and workers. They represent emptied communities, abandoned farmlands, and children pulled out of school. Yet despite a staggering 2025 security and defence budget of ₦6.57 trillion (approximately $4.78 billion), the bloodletting continues.

The root of Nigeria’s escalating insecurity is not a mere failure of “political will”. It is the inevitable outcome of neoliberal capitalist policies that prioritise profit, privatisation, and foreign dependency over human life. Until we break from this system and build security on the foundations of jobs, food, housing, and social justice, Nigeria will continue to bury its people.

The Scale of the Crisis: Numbers That Scream

The data paints a damning picture:

• 2021–2022: Fatalities stood at 6,895 and 5,792 respectively.
• 2023: 4,416 people were killed and 2,653 were abducted.
• 2024: 5,353 were killed and 5,171 kidnapped, nearly doubling abductions in a single year.
• 2025: Violence surged again, with 6,518 people killed and 3,141 abducted across 1,274 recorded incidents.
• January–April 2026: Another 3,693 were killed and 1,505 kidnapped.

In total, since 2023, 12,362 Nigerians have been abducted, with annual ransom demands estimated to exceed ₦48 billion. Amnesty International reports that at least 10,217 people have been killed since the current administration took office. Benue State alone recorded 6,896 deaths, while Plateau recorded 2,630.

The North-West and North-Central zones bear the brunt of the violence. In 2025, the worst-hit states for fatalities were Borno (1,124 deaths), Zamfara (1,088), Katsina (694), Kaduna (538), Benue (469), and Plateau (354). For abductions, Zamfara led with 1,755, followed by Kaduna (991) and Katsina (604). Bandotry accounted for 599 incidents and 2,724 deaths in 2025, up sharply from 256 incidents and 1,585 deaths in 2024.

Farmer-herder conflicts also rose from 58 incidents and 188 deaths in 2024 to 87 incidents and 322 deaths in 2025. At the base of all this is hunger: 31.8 million Nigerians were food insecure at the end of 2024, a figure projected to rise to 34.7 million by mid-2026.

Capitalism and the Commodification of Security

How did a nation so rich produce a reality so desperate? The answer lies in the economic model imposed since the 1980s: neoliberal capitalism.

• Privatization of Survival: Under capitalist policy, the state withdrew from the provision of social amenities and welfare. Education, healthcare, housing, and jobs were left to the “market”, producing mass youth unemployment. When a young person cannot feed their family and witnesses bandit leaders earning ₦300 million weekly from illegal mining, the gun becomes an avenue for survival. Poverty and hopelessness serve as the primary recruitment centres for violence.

• Security as a Premium Commodity: Where does the ₦6.57 trillion defence budget go? It is swallowed by foreign arms dealers, private contractors, and a bloated bureaucracy, while frontline troops complain of poor equipment. State governments are forced to fill the gap; Sokoto State spent ₦27.6 billion of its own funds on armoured vehicles and motorcycles. Under capitalism, security is a luxury to buy rather than a guaranteed right. The elite hire private guards while the poor are left unprotected.

• Extractive Economy and Resource Wars: Illicit mining funds armed groups, while farmer-herder clashes are resource wars driven by land grabbing, environmental stress, and capitalist agriculture that displaces smallholder farmers. Instead of planning land usage for the public good, the state protects corporate property boundaries.

• Foreign Imperialist Dependency: Hundreds of US troops are deployed to “train” Nigerian forces. Joint operations kill individual insurgent leaders, yet the violence persists. Capitalism ties Nigeria’s security apparatus to foreign arms dealers and IMF mandates rather than the direct needs of local communities.

The Normalisation of Death

Prolonged violence has produced what observers call the “normalization” of tragedy. Major highways are abandoned after 6:00 PM, gunshots are treated as background noise, and families maintain personal “kidnap contingency plans”. This reflects the psychology of a society where human life has been systematically devalued. Under capitalism, a worker’s worth is tied to what they produce, and a farmer’s worth to their harvest; when both are destroyed, the system moves on.

Meanwhile, official responses frequently lean toward denial, with government officials accusing media outlets of exaggeration. But the raw data remains undeniable: 19,980 people were killed between 2023 and April 2026.

Why Military Solutions Alone Cannot Work

Minister of Defence Gen. Christopher Gwabin Musa (Rtd.) ordered troops to shoot terrorists and bandits without waiting for commands, leading to reports of over 300 insurgents killed in Zamfara during a two-day operation. However, execution squads cannot eliminate banditry while the material conditions producing it remain untouched. The military remains overstretched across multiple fronts: Boko Haram in the North-East, banditry in the North-West, herder-farmer clashes in the Middle Belt, and secessionist agitation in the South-East.

Deploying more arms without addressing poverty is like pouring water into a sieve. As Amnesty International stated, “security measures implemented by the government are simply not working.”

The Socialist Alternative: Security Through Justice

A socialist approach operates on a clear premise: people are secure when their basic needs are met.

1. Guaranteed Public Employment: Launch a massive public works program, roads, hospitals, schools, and irrigation infrastructure, employing millions of youths at a living wage. Fund it by taxing wealth, recovering stolen assets, and curbing luxury imports.

• Food Sovereignty and Radical Land Reform: End corporate land grabbing, redistribute land to small farmers and pastoralist cooperatives, and invest in storage and processing facilities to combat food insecurity.

• Democratized, Community-Led Security: Professionalize and democratize security operations. Establish community defense outfits under the democratic control of workers’ and farmers’ organizations, ensuring intelligence originates from local populations.

• Public Ownership of Strategic Resources: Bring mining under public ownership and use mineral revenues to fund free public education, healthcare, and local infrastructure.

• Anti-Imperialist Regional Cooperation: Partner with Niger, Chad, and Cameroon on joint economic development and environmental planning to address desertification and cross-border poverty.

• Democratic Control of Resources: Abolish opaque “security votes” and subject the ₦6.57 trillion defense budget to strict public audits, recovering mismanaged funds and prosecuting corrupt officials.

From Profit to People

Nigeria’s descent into crisis is the direct outcome of a system that places profit before human life: 32,667 dead, 23,187 kidnapped, and 34.7 million facing hunger.

A different path is possible: a socialist Nigeria where safety is built on full employment, publicly funded education, universal healthcare, and human dignity. When every citizen has food, work, and security, the resort to violence loses its pull. We must break with capitalist misrule and build a society that puts people first.