Nigeria’s Federal Government has officially designated kidnappers and armed groups as terrorists, fundamentally changing how authorities will respond to abductions and attacks on rural communities. Information Minister Mohammed Idris announced the policy shift Monday during the government’s end-of-year briefing in Abuja, signaling a transition from treating such crimes as conventional offenses to counterterrorism operations.
“Henceforth, any armed group or individual that kidnaps our children, attacks our farmers, and terrorises our communities is officially classified and will be dealt with as a terrorist organisation,” Idris stated. “The era of ambiguous nomenclature is over. If you terrorise our people, whether you are a group or you are an individual, you are a terrorist and will be classified as such.”
The minister highlighted recent successes in security coordination, including the 2025 capture of two internationally wanted criminals, among them ISWAP leader Abu Barra. The government is deploying trained forest guards to secure remote areas used as criminal hideouts, aiming to disrupt supply lines and protect farming communities through enhanced intelligence sharing and inter-agency collaboration.