No fewer than 279 persons were kidnapped across Nigeria in May 2026, even as the country recorded 156 violent incidents that resulted in 842 deaths,
The figure is contained in new data from Nextier’s Nigeria Violent Conflicts Database, according to a statement made available on Sunday.
The figures indicate a rise in insecurity, with violent incidents “by 51.5 per cent, casualties increasing by 90.1 per cent, and kidnap victims climbing by 19.7 per cent compared to May 2025.”
The data comes amid growing concerns that Nigeria’s peacebuilding efforts are not yielding measurable results despite significant investments by governments and development partners.
In a new policy article titled “The Travails of Measuring Peacebuilding in Fragile Contexts,” development practitioner and research professional at Nextier Jamilu Musa and Dr. Chukwuma Okoli, visiting Lead for Research and Policy at Nextier and a Political Science lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, warned that weak impact assessment frameworks are undermining the effectiveness of interventions.
