Executive Summary 

Banditry in Nigeria is projected to escalate significantly in activity and lethality through the remainder of the year, with recorded killings during the first half of 2025 surpassing the total number of casualties documented in 2024. Bandits’ attacks have grown more complex and widespread, with coordinated assaults on military bases and mass casualty attacks on civilian enclaves. 

Bandit groups are driven primarily by illicit economies and tribal tensions, but emerging evidence suggests that Kaduna and Zamfara based groups are adopting insurgency tactics and limited tradecraft from Boko Haram. These include, coordinating propaganda and recruitment efforts through social media channels, as well as exploiting women as weapons traffickers. 

Widespread banditry continues to severely disrupt economic activity in border regions. Among the affected dynamics are supply chains that depend on travelling through roads with bandit presence and border trade that declined due to armed incidents. Nigeria food security is also at stake, with banditry triggering internal displacement in the northern farmlands.

Image Sourced From: SETAF-Africa