Nextier Report: 279 Nigerians Abducted in May 2026 Amidst Rising Violence

Nigeria witnessed a concerning surge in abductions during May 2026, with a reported 279 individuals kidnapped across the nation. This alarming figure comes from new data compiled by Nextier’s Nigeria Violent Conflicts Database, as disclosed in a statement released on Sunday. The report also highlights 156 violent incidents nationwide, resulting in a tragic 842 fatalities.

These statistics underscore a worrying escalation in insecurity. Compared to May 2025, violent occurrences have climbed by 51.5 percent, casualties by 90.1 percent, and the number of kidnap victims by 19.7 percent. This increase comes at a time of heightened concern regarding the effectiveness of Nigeria’s peacebuilding initiatives, which appear to yield limited tangible results despite considerable investments from both government bodies and development partners.

In a recently published policy article titled “The Travails of Measuring Peacebuilding in Fragile Contexts,” Jamilu Musa, a development practitioner and research professional at Nextier, alongside Dr. Chukwuma Okoli, who is a visiting Lead for Research and Policy at Nextier and a Political Science lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, issued a warning. They emphasized that inadequate impact assessment frameworks are hindering the efficacy of various interventions.

The experts noted that while governments and local communities continue to fund peacebuilding programmes, evaluating whether these efforts genuinely reduce conflict remains a significant hurdle. They stressed that successful peacebuilding extends beyond merely organizing dialogue sessions, workshops, or awareness campaigns. True success, they argued, is measured by a reduction in violence, improved trust, strengthened community resilience, and enhanced social cohesion.

Musa and Okoli further contended that with the global decline in funding for peacebuilding, accurately measuring impact has become more critical than ever. They attributed this funding pressure partly to competing international crises, such as the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War and tensions in the Middle East, which have redirected donor attention and resources. Additionally, evolving global economic priorities, including protectionist policies under former US President Donald Trump’s economic nationalism, have reportedly lessened support for peacebuilding efforts in countries like Nigeria.

However, the experts acknowledged that assessing peacebuilding outcomes is inherently more complex than evaluating conventional development projects. This difficulty arises because many crucial indicators—such as trust levels, resilience, perceptions of safety, and social cohesion—are intangible and challenging to quantify.

To guide peacebuilding assessments in volatile environments, they proposed four key indicators: conflict dynamics, social cohesion, governance and inclusion, and resilience/conflict prevention. Conflict dynamics, they clarified, track changes in patterns of violence like kidnappings and communal clashes. Social cohesion measures trust and cooperation within communities. Governance and inclusion evaluate public confidence in institutions and the participation of women, youth, and vulnerable groups in decision-making. Lastly, resilience assesses how effectively communities can prevent conflicts from escalating.

Despite these proposed indicators, the statement outlined that measuring peacebuilding outcomes remains difficult due to several obstacles. The experts identified six major challenges: attribution bias, short donor funding cycles, rapidly evolving conflict realities, the inherent difficulty in measuring intangible outcomes, poor baseline data, and security constraints that impede data collection in conflict-affected areas.

“Peace is not static; it is a work in progress involving both reducing conflict and increasing development,” the analysts stated. To overcome these challenges, they recommended the adoption of modern evaluation tools such as outcome harvesting, most significant change, conflict-sensitive monitoring, perception surveys, social network analysis, participatory monitoring and evaluation, and mixed-method assessments. They also urged federal and state governments to institutionalize peace measurement frameworks by using standardized indicators focusing on trust, inclusion, resilience, and perceptions of security. The experts concluded by advocating for stronger collaboration among security agencies, humanitarian actors, development partners, and peacebuilding organizations to enhance evidence-sharing and minimize duplication. They emphasized that merely counting activities is insufficient; the crucial question is whether peacebuilding interventions are genuinely making communities safer, more inclusive, and more resilient amidst Nigeria’s persistent security challenges.