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| Terrorists/Getty images |
Data from the Nigeria Security Report produced by Beacon Consulting, a security risk management and intelligence consulting firm, show that between January 1 and July 29, 2022, terrorists, bandits, and other attackers killed 7,222 people and abducted 3,823 people in the nation.
Benue state, which appears to be the most persecuted state in the Middle Belt, finished in second place with 90 fatalities, while Borno state, a Northeastern state and the stronghold of Boko Haram terrorists, had the highest deaths with 163 over the time period under consideration.
According to the research, Kaduna was the third-most risky state and had 82 fatalities throughout the time frame.
Niger and Zamfara both experienced high death rates, each with 65.
The report states;
“In June 2022, the government’s efforts significantly reduced the security incidents and fatalities but not abductions, compared with the figures for May 2022.
“Accordingly, in the sixth month of the year, we recorded 338 incidents that resulted in 651 abductions and 765 fatalities. These affected 185 Local Government Areas in 36 states plus the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
It went further to state that;
“Ondo state recorded the highest fatalities in the South West region at 55 persons killed in the monitored period while Ebonyi state had 28 fatalities as the state with the highest from the South East region,”
According to the report, drastic interventions only had a marginally positive effect on abductions between May and June 2022, as evidenced by the following statistics:
"incidents - May (421) and June (338) representing a 19.7 percent decrease; fatalities - May (913) and June (765) representing a 16.2 percent decrease, and abduction - May (265) and June (651) representing a 145.7 percent increase."
Additionally, it stated that 28.5 percent of these incidents took place in the North East geopolitical region (219 fatalities), 23.5 percent in the North Central geopolitical region (180 fatalities), 23.5 percent in the North West (180 fatalities), 10.5 percent in the South West (80 fatalities), 9.2 percent in the South East (70 fatalities), and 4.7 percent in the South-South (36 fatalities). The northern portion of Nigeria was the region in which 75,6 percent of June 2022's fatalities occurred.
A thematic analysis reveals that the following major incident typologies are to blame: ambush (79 fatalities), combat/crossfire (183 fatalities), and raids by non-state actors (350 fatalities).
