The Nigeria Police Force has dismissed an Amnesty International report alleging that at least 1,100 people were abducted across the country within a three‑month period, describing the figures as unverified and not based on official security data.

Force Public Relations Officer, Anthony Placid, challenged the credibility of the report, saying the organisation failed to engage with the police before releasing its findings. He insisted that any serious assessment of crime trends must be reconciled with official records.

“What is their source of information? They didn’t consult the police or cross-check with us. We have our records, and they didn’t check with us. If they didn’t consult us, then you should know better. Ask for the source of their report,” Placid said.

Amnesty International had urged the Federal Government to urgently confront worsening insecurity, particularly in northern Nigeria, where it said mass abductions by gunmen and armed groups have become routine. The group claimed that at least 1,100 people were seized between January and April, many from rural communities and camps for internally displaced persons.

The organisation alleged that abducted victims are frequently subjected to torture, starvation, rape and forced participation in violent acts. It cited a series of attacks in Kwara, Zamfara, Borno, Niger and Kaduna states, including raids on villages, highways and churches, in which hundreds were reportedly taken and many others killed.

Amnesty’s Nigeria Director, Isa Sanusi, warned that the true scale of the crisis may be even higher, arguing that many incidents go unreported. He said families are being pushed into destitution as they sell property or pool community funds to pay ransoms, while those unable to raise money face the risk of their relatives being killed or disappearing.

The group also accused authorities of failing to meet their constitutional and international obligations to protect citizens, noting that fear of abduction is disrupting schooling and driving some families to withdraw children, particularly girls, from education.

The police, however, maintained that while insecurity remains a serious concern, any public accounting of kidnappings must be grounded in verifiable statistics. They called for closer collaboration between civil society organisations and security agencies to ensure that reports on violence and crime reflect accurate, jointly validated data.