The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s official data agency, reported 51.89 million crime incidents across households between May 2023 and April 2024. Rural areas accounted for 26.53 million of these cases, according to its Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey.
The Northwest region had the highest crime rate, with more than 14.4 million incidents, followed by the Northcentral at 8.8 million. The Southeast recorded the least crime with 6.18 million cases.
Kidnappings remained a major issue, with 65 percent of affected households paying ransoms. The average ransom per case was ₦2,670,693 ($1,720), bringing the total to an estimated ₦2,231,772,563,507 ($1,437,719,876).
“The result also shows that the crime incidence in the rural area (26,526,069) was higher than that of the urban area (25,360,963),” the report noted.
The survey also found that 4.14 million households suffered home robberies, but only 36.3 percent reported these cases to the police due to widespread mistrust in law enforcement.
