Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, has said banditry and kidnapping now appear to be an industry, accusing Nigerian security agencies of helping bandits and kidnappers to collect ransom from their victims.

Mr Mohammed made this statement during an interview on Channels TV on December 31, 2024 when asked on his view on claims by some Nigerians that security agencies know the bandits and kidnappers terrorising the country.

”Even the security agencies know where these bandits live, you see some key members of the security participate in ransom collecting, to me it is appalling when you admit inefficiency and lack of capacity,” Mr Mohammed said.

Mr Mohammed further said that it was baffling that in Niger, Boko Haram were not allowed to operate and escape with impunity as they do in Nigeria.

“It is baffling that some people are carrying out crimes and criminality. They are not touched. They come and celebrate. The impunity is too much. It is baffling,” Mr Mohammed said.

“In the neighbourhood Niger, they don’t allow Boko Haram to go with glee. So why are we allowing them? Today, it appears, this thing has become an industry.”

Before now, a former governor of Katsina State, Aminu Masari, said that bandits were not aliens but people known in the state.

Mr Masari stated, “They (Bandits) are people who speak the same language like me, who profess the same religion as me. So what we have here on the ground, these bandits, they are not aliens. They are people we know. They are people that have been living with us for 100 years.”

In 2022, Peoples Gazette reported how Nigerian soldiers took cuts in the ransom paid by one of the passengers seized by bandits who intercepted a Kaduna-bound train on March 28.

Citing Wall Street Journal in 2021, The Gazette reported how the Nigerian Air Force coordinated ransom payments to armed bandits in exchange for an anti-aircraft gun seized from the Nigerian Army.

Nigerian military and Air Force respectively had declined commenting on the reports.