A significant portion of murder cases in Nigeria remains unreported, with over 28% of such incidents not being brought to the attention of the police, according to a recent report from the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The report, titled Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey 2024, was released on Tuesday and covers the period from March 2023 to April 2024.
The survey reveals that only 0.7% of the 614,937 murder cases in the country were reported to law enforcement, with many victims’ families opting to report the crime to other authorities or handle the matter privately.
The primary reason for this is a lack of confidence in the police, as many believe the authorities would not take adequate action.
Another 27.5% of cases went unreported because victims’ families lacked evidence to identify the perpetrators or feared that the police would not act on the information.
According to the report, 39.9% of murder cases were reported to other agencies, while 15.8% were not reported out of fear of retaliation from the perpetrators.
Notably, no cases were resolved by the families of the victims, the report states.
The survey also highlighted that the North-West region recorded the highest number of murders, with over 206,000 cases, while the South-West had the lowest at 15,693.
The NBS noted that, nationwide, more than 51.8 million crime incidents were reported by households during the period.
The North-West also experienced the highest number of overall crime incidents (14.4 million), followed by the North-Central (8.8 million), while the South-East reported the least (6.2 million).
Furthermore, the report indicated that rural areas had higher crime rates (26.5 million incidents) compared to urban areas (25.4 million incidents).
