Nigeria Secures Release of Last 130 Kidnapped Students Amid a Thriving Ransom Economy

Nigerian authorities have secured the release of the final 130 schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic boarding school in November, a presidential spokesman announced Sunday, bringing an end to a month-long ordeal that highlighted the country's deepening security crisis.

"Another 130 abducted Niger state pupils released, none left in captivity," presidential spokesman Sunday Dare stated in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The abduction from St. Mary's co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger state was part of a wave of mass kidnappings reminiscent of the infamous 2014 Chibok abduction by Boko Haram. The exact number of victims was a point of confusion throughout the crisis.

A UN source told AFP the discrepancy in numbers likely arose because dozens thought to have been kidnapped had actually managed to flee during the chaotic attack and make their own way home. "The accounting has been complicated because the children's homes are scattered across swathes of rural Nigeria, sometimes requiring three or four hours of travel by motorbike to reach their remote villages," the source said.

Crucially, it has not been made public who was behind the mass abduction or how the government negotiated the students' release. Citing past incidents, analysts suggest a ransom was likely paid, a practice that is technically illegal in Nigeria but widely believed to be common. Kidnapping for ransom has become a lucrative criminal enterprise in the country.

Nigeria, West Africa's most populous nation, is grappling with multiple, interlocking security challenges, from jihadist insurgencies in the northeast to armed "bandit" gangs in the northwest who carry out mass kidnappings for profit.

The security situation has also attracted international political scrutiny. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has alleged that mass killings of Christians in Nigeria amount to a "genocide" and threatened military intervention. However, Nigeria's government and independent analysts reject that framing, arguing it oversimplifies a complex conflict driven by a mix of socio-economic, ethnic, and criminal factors, rather than purely religious persecution.