By Dare Akogun, Ilorin

SHORTLY after daybreak on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, a phone rang in a small farming settlement tucked between the forests of Igbofe and Ora in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State.

Young worshippers exiting the church after a special Sunday service held for the kidnapped worshippers.

For Sakariyau Alabi, a yam and cassava farmer, that call would alter his life forever.

The trembling voice on the other end belonged to his kidnapped wife whispering through pain, telling him she had been shot twice and patched up in the bush by the same men who abducted her.

“She told me only God can rescue them,” Alabi told The ICIR, fighting tears.

“My son was lying in blood when I returned home. They carried my wife, my daughter and my brother’s wife. They also took a Fulani visitor.”

Hours earlier, armed men had stormed the compound, shooting his 28-year-old son in the stomach before dragging four people into the surrounding forest.

Then came the ransom demand: ₦500 million.

After pleading, they reduced it to ₦100 million still an impossible sum for a subsistence farmer.

“Even if I sell all my crops and land, it will never reach that amount,” he said.

Alabi’s story is no longer an exception. It is the new reality of rural Kwara. Kwara’s forest belt: From farmland to fear zone.

The ICIR’s review of recent incidences shows a disturbing pattern: Kwara’s rural communities once considered transit corridors have now become active operational bases for kidnappers.

Expelled bullets shells used by the attackers on the Church

Igbofe, Koro, Moro, Patigi, Asa and Kaiama LGAs share porous boundaries with Kogi, Niger, Ekiti and parts of the North-Central forests.

Security analysts say these routes have become safe havens for criminal cells fleeing military pressure in neighbouring states.

Armed security men mounting guard at the church few days after the attack

“What we are witnessing is a spillover,” said Ilorin-based security analyst, Abdulrasheed Abdullahi, in an interview with The ICIR.

“These groups are no longer passing through they are settling, forming cells and launching repeated attacks.”

The attacks now follow a predictable pattern, dawn or late-night raid, rapid gunfire, abduction into deep forests, impossible ransom demand, negotiations under fear and silence and families like Alabi’s are left to negotiate alone.

In Koro, a historic border community in Ekiti LGA, the crisis is already decades deep.

On Tuesday the same day Alabi’s family was abducted a 25-year-old Miss Abigael Obagbemi and 35-year-old, Abiodun Olawale, were kidnapped on their way to a local market.

Bullet ridden windows aftermath of the attack 

A relative, who asked to be identified only as Segun, told The ICIR: “The kidnappers are asking for ₦100 million each. These are traders. They are not rich. They just want to destroy families.”

Koro is still grieving from the 2024 assassination of its traditional ruler, HRH Retired General Segun Aremu, who was murdered in his palace by masked gunmen.

Kwara State Commissioner of Police CP Adekimi Ojo addressing residents of Eruku

Residents say the violence has only intensified since then.

On Monday, December 1, 2025, two Chinese expatriates working on the BUA Bode Saadu–Kaiama–Kosubosu road project were abducted in Ejidongari after gunmen invaded the construction site.

Kwara State Commissioner of Police, CP Adekimi Ojo, confirmed the incident.

Armed security men mounting guard at the church few days after the attack.

“The police are doing everything within our power to rescue all abducted individuals. Our detectives are working day and night,” he said.

But for many communities, those assurances feel distant.

‘We negotiate alone’

Security researcher,  Musbau Ajeigbe, says the kidnappers’ strategy is shifting and more deadly.

“Families now negotiate directly because kidnappers threaten to kill victims if the police are involved,” he explained.

“This is extremely dangerous. It deepens poverty and emboldens criminals.”

He warned that the abductions of foreign workers, repeated raids on rural homes, and attacks on places of worship show a transformation in the criminal networks’ sophistication.

“This is organised terrorism,” he said.

Kwara’s silent emergency

Across the state’s rural LGAs, fear now dictates daily life, farmers are abandoning farmlands, women avoid early morning travel and vigilante groups, armed with dane guns and courage, face attackers with automatic weapons

Madam Felicia who lost a family member to the attack

Also, children no longer walk alone at dawn and communities sleep lightly waiting for the next knock.

The ICIR found that some villages have created informal levies to fund emergency ransom contributions.

But for Alabi, there is no community levy big enough to match the kidnappers’ threats.

As he sits outside the hospital ward where his son fights for life, Alabi’s voice trembles.

“I cannot sleep. I cannot eat,” he said, adding: “They told me to choose — pay or lose my family. I beg Nigerians, please help me.”

Somewhere in the thick forest stretching from Kwara to Kogi, his wife, daughter and sister-in-law are waiting hungry, wounded, and unsure if help will come.

For now, all he can do is wait for another phone call and pray it is not another threat.