By Charles Pemu 
ILORIN, KWARA—Kwara State is facing an escalating security crisis as relentless bandits and kidnappers terrorize its northern and southern regions, forcing the state government to adopt emergency security measures and putting immense financial strain on victims’ families.
The crisis, which has spared the five Ilorin-based emirate councils and two other LGAs, has left nine local government areas—including Edu, Patigi, Baruten, Kaiama, and Ifelodun—under a sustained siege of killings and abductions.
Bandit groups, identified as mostly herdsmen who infiltrated Kwara through Niger State from Zamfara and Sokoto, have settled in the state’s thick forests. Sources reveal that these groups, often working with local informants, have embraced kidnapping as an easy route to wealth, turning them into “overnight billionaires.”
Reported cases of abductions have become regular: In August alone, Edu Local Government saw a woman abducted in Kpanpkanragi village and four people seized in Gamalegi, while a second brutal attack forced residents to flee Lataworo. The violence continued in Kwara South, where two people were kidnapped in Ifelodun LGA shortly after Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq visited.
The financial toll on the state is staggering. Former NLC Chairman Emmanuel Ayeoribe stated that over 90% of abductees’ families have been forced to raise “hundreds of millions of Naira” to pay ransoms, a situation that has made the criminal enterprise unstoppable. “Many businesses and lives have been ruined financially in the process of securing family and friends from the jaws of bandits,” he lamented.
The security situation was tragically highlighted last Sunday in Oke-Ode, where no fewer than 11 forest guards and a community head were massacred by suspected bandits. The deadly attack immediately sparked controversy. A survivor, Ajetunmobi, and a woman who lost family members in the attack, publicly accused the Department of State Service (DSS) of disarming local vigilantes (forest guards) just prior to the massacre, a claim they argued gave the assailants superior firepower.
The state government, however, moved quickly to deny the charge. In a statement on Tuesday, the Governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Rafiu Ajakaiye, described the disarmament claim as false, though he expressed condolences to the bereaved.
In response to the persistent violence, the state government has intensified its counter-offensive. Security forces recently achieved a breakthrough when a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) fighter jet commenced operations over the bandits’ thick forest hideouts, particularly near the Kwara/Kogi border. NAF’s Director of Public Relations, Ehimen Ejodame, confirmed that coordinated air missions were executed across Kakihun, Oke-Ode, and Babanla, eliminating several terrorists, including a notorious kidnap kingpin known as Maiwada.
Despite the air strikes and government efforts—which include equipping security agencies and training 800 vigilantes—sources indicate that security efforts are hampered. The local forest guards are often overpowered by the AK-47 rifles wielded by bandits, and there is a recurring challenge with the “bureaucracy of getting the military and officers of NAF to quickly come to the rescue,” a factor that has sabotaged efforts to eliminate the criminals.
Following a security meeting on Tuesday in Ilorin, Governor AbdulRazaq vowed to utilize every resource at his disposal to combat the rising insecurity, assuring the public that Kwara “will not be a hiding place for criminals.