Daily Trust Editorial, March 25, 2026
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has witnessed surge of kidnappings and attacks by bandits and other armed groups, especially on its suburban and rural areas. And what worries most residents is the seeming feeling that it is not being taken seriously by the nation’s political, defence and security leadership. Yet, insecurity in the nation’s capital territory shouldn’t be tackled with levity as it has heightened fears, sometimes prompting mass relocations from attack-prone areas.
On March 5, 2026, suspected bandits invaded Kungaboku, a farming community near Byazhin, extension of Kubwa in Bwari Area Council, abducting a retired military officer, Bankole Ganiyu, and three children, while also killing a vigilante member on duty. And following the killing of a bandit commander during a security operation on March 7, 2026 which rescued 19 victims from Kungaboku and Paze, bandits issued threats of reprisal attacks, causing residents to flee. They targeted a Fulani settlement, kidnapped three women and demanded N70 million ransom. Another attack killed a vigilante member and abducted farm workers.
In one case, up to 16-20 people (including a pastor’s four children aged 6-16) were kidnapped in a single night in early March 2026. Altogether, no fewer than 20 abductions were reported in the area over two weeks.
Generally, gunmen operate freely in parts of Kubwa and other areas of Bwari, Gwagwalada, Abaji Area Councils, conducting house-to-house raids, killing and abducting residents (including women and children), vigilante family members and other residents; demanding ransoms from vulnerable rural/farming settlements. And to show their audacity, abductors in Kungabokun and Paze FCT communities’ members send account details to families to facilitate ransom payments.
But most discomforting is that the insecurity surge is not a recent phenomenon. For a 20-month period ending in late 2025, roughly 179 residents were kidnapped. In January 2024, six siblings were kidnapped alongside their father, Alhaji Mansoor AlKadriyar, from their home at Zuma 1, on the outskirts of Bwari town in Abuja. They later released their father to go and get N60 million as ransom for the release of his daughters. When raising the ransom wasn’t feasible, the bandits killed Nabeeha AlKadriyar, a 400-level student of Biological Science, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU. On January 7, 2024, 10 individuals were abducted from a neighbourhood in Sagwari Layout, Dutse, Abuja, on January 7, 2024 and were released after ransom was paid. Yet, there has been no lasting solution to halt the combination of opportunistic urban crime, persistent kidnapping risks, killings and destruction of property in outlying areas.
Daily Trust believes that it is time for armed gangs in the FCT to feel the fangs of the arrays of defence and security agencies. The full force of the powers of the Office of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and strategic institutions with headquarters in FCT like Office of National Security Adviser (ONSA), Defence Headquarters, Army, Navy and Air Force including the Nigeria Police, Department of State Security (DSS), National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and myriads of other para-military, with their elite intelligence and operational formations, should be put to task.
Indeed, security in Abuja demands full attention. Therefore, we at Daily Trust implore President Bola Tinubu to ask the right questions, make the right moves and insist on the numerous defence and security agencies justifying their presence through strengthening law enforcement operations through proactive driven responses.
Moreover, we urge a coordinated approach involving enhanced intelligence gathering, community policing, technological interventions like a motorcycle registration system, and strengthening collaboration with Kaduna, Nasarawa, and Niger states governments and security forces to secure the FCT boundary lines, as indications are that insecurity frequently originates from surrounding states. Clearly, the insecurity in North-central region is spilling into the FCT and this must not be allowed.
In addition, police and vigilante patrols and presence should be bolstered to protect rural and semi-urban farming communities and roads in order to secure lives, property and food supply chains. There should also be swift, transparent prosecution of suspects to restore public confidence.
The insecurity in FCT is embarrassing as it is a blow to its projection as symbol of the nation’s strength, unity, progress, and stability, shattering the image and perception as a serious, sovereign nation. This is more so as reports of insecurity creates headlines, raises travel advisories by embassies, high commissions, international agencies (UN, World Bank missions, etc.), and frequent high-level foreign visitors, making the territory and the country in general appear ungovernable or unsafe for investment or diplomacy.
The capital territory should be the safest place in Nigeria and any breach fuels perceptions of state weakness, incompetence, or prioritization failures. This puts a question mark on past ambitions for Abuja to become “Africa’s conference capital,” a major MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions) hub. Fallouts such as these must not stand. The FCT must be secured. And the time is now.
