Non-State Responses to Kidnapping in Nigeria

Nigeria is daily confronted with insecurity—banditry and kidnapping among others. In spite of different state’s efforts to reduce the problem, one will notice an obvious increase in cases of kidnapping across the length and breadth of the country. Against this backdrop, the study seeks to assess the efforts and effectiveness of the Non-State Actors (NSAs) to rise up to challenges of the security in Nigeria. In this case, civil society groups have played important roles in public education, policy advocacy and hostage negotiation, while vigilante groups are involved in the fight against kidnappers and rescuing of hostages. This chapter relies on data generated through the secondary method with interpretative method of qualitative data analysis. Accordingly, it is observed to be in Nigeria’s overall interest to embrace collective efforts of both state and non-state actors in combating insecurity. Regardless of the efficiency of NSAs in combating kidnapping and other criminalities, however, state security forces must be re-organized, re-oriented and re-equipped to take on their tasks, as over-reliance on vigilante group is a ticking time bomb.