Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) published a report entitled “Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey 2024,” and the report opened up the amount Nigerians had lost to insecurity.
Now, the NBS has quietly removed that report released on December 17, last year.
Basically, that report had revealed alarming statistics on kidnapping in Nigeria, with an estimate kidnapping incident last year.
The report entitled: “Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey 2024”, was released on December 17, 2024.
Furthermore, the survey estimated 2,235,954 kidnapping incidents between May 2023 and April 2024, with ₦2.23 trillion paid in ransoms.
Sixty-five per cent of affected households reportedly paid ransoms, averaging ₦2.67 million per incident.
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Overall, 51,887,032 crimes were experienced by households across Nigeria.
The North-West reported the highest number of incidents (14,402,254), while the South-East had the lowest (6,176,031).
Rural areas recorded slightly more crimes (26,526,069) than urban areas (25,360,963).
Home robbery also featured prominently, with 4,142,174 households affected.
However, only 36.3% of victims reported the incidents to the police, highlighting a potential lack of trust in law enforcement.
Shortly after releasing the report, the NBS announced on its X account that hackers had attacked its website and urged the public to disregard any information posted.
By the time the site went live again on Wednesday, January 15, the crime report had disappeared, replaced by the December inflation report.
The sudden removal of the report has sparked questions about transparency, as the alarming findings highlighted urgent issues of insecurity.
With no official explanation for its disappearance, the mystery of the missing NBS Crime Survey deepens concerns about addressing crime in Nigeria.