Kaduna Church Abduction Highlights Nigeria’s Banditry Crisis

Nigeria’s acknowledgment of a mass abduction in Kaduna State underscores a recurring tension between crisis management and credibility in the country’s internal security response. After early official denials, police confirmed late Tuesday that armed men had abducted dozens of villagers during a Sunday raid, conceding that an “abduction” had occurred and that rescue operations were under way. The reversal reflects the fragile trust between affected communities and state authorities in regions long exposed to mass kidnappings.

National police spokesman Benjamin Hundeyin said the initial denials were “intended to prevent unnecessary panic while facts were being confirmed,” a formulation that mirrors past security incidents in which authorities delayed acknowledgment.

The police statement did not specify numbers, but multiple independent accounts converged on a large-scale attack. Kaduna State lawmaker Usman Danlami Stingo told the Associated Press that 168 people were missing. Reverend John Hayab of the Christian Association of Nigeria said at least 172 worshippers were kidnapped and that 9 later escaped, leaving 163 unaccounted for.

Churches, Bandits, Leverage

The attack occurred on Sunday as villagers gathered to pray in three churches in Kurmin Wali. Dozens of gunmen stormed the village and abducted what residents described as roughly a quarter of the local population.

Two days later, the community received a demand tied not to cash but to logistics. “The bandits want the return of 10 missing motorcycles they hid in the bush,” while residents said they did not know the bikes’ whereabouts and were already impoverished, struggling to feed themselves.

The episode fits a broader pattern in northwest and central Nigeria, where armed gangs known locally as bandits conduct mass kidnappings for ransom or leverage, often operating from remote forested areas. Such groups have targeted both Christian and Muslim communities, complicating attempts to frame the violence along purely sectarian lines.

Security Strain and Military Losses

The Kaduna abductions came amid continuing militant violence across the northwest. On Monday, five soldiers and one police officer were killed when troops responding to an attack on a village in Zamfara State were ambushed, the military said Tuesday. The armed forces reported killing four militants and arresting three suspects during raids conducted between January 17 and January 19.

In November, more than 300 students and teachers were abducted from a Catholic school in Niger State. Fifty escaped, while the remainder were released weeks later in two batches. The recurrence of such incidents illustrates the limits of kinetic responses alone and the challenge of securing rural populations.

U.S. Strikes and Narrative Pushback

The Kaduna raid also unfolds against heightened international attention. On December 26, the United States carried out airstrikes against ISIS-linked militants in northwest Nigeria on Christmas night, with U.S. President Donald Trump announcing the operation and citing attacks on Christians. Over a dozen Tomahawk missiles struck two camps, according to U.S. statements.

Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the strikes were conducted through cooperation with the United States and emphasized that “all counter-terrorism efforts are guided by the primacy of protecting civilian lives, safeguarding national unity, and upholding the rights and dignity of all citizens, irrespective of faith or ethnicity”, denoting opposition to Trump’s framing of the attack as religious.

Abuja specifically rejected Trump’s framing of the strikes as a response to a “Christian genocide,” stressing they were counter-terrorism actions not based on religion.

This pushback reflects Nigeria’s effort to contain the international narrative while confronting a security crisis that has killed and kidnapped hundreds over recent years.