28% of murders unreported because ‘police will not take action’ — Report

Over 28% of murders carried out across the country are not reported to the police because the police would not respond satisfactorily, according to the latest Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report.

The NBS publication titled Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey 2024, published on Tuesday, covers the period ranging from March 2023 to April 2024.

The NBS, in its latest survey, said that out of over 614,937 murder cases in the country in 2024, only 0.7 per cent of people reported the cases to the police, with a larger percentage preferring to report to other agencies, while some others decided to solve the matter on their own.

The report revealed that a further 27.5 per cent of people did not report because they did not have any evidence against the perpetrators of the crime, ultimately resulting in the police not taking any action.

It said, “Households provided different reasons for not reporting murder incidents to the police, amongst which 39.9 per cent reported that murder incidence involving their household were reported to other authorities, 27.5 per cent felt they had no evidence to present to the police or the police will not take action while 15.8 per cent did not report due to fear of reprisal. However, no household reported that murder case was resolved by family.”

The survey, which was carried out by zones, showed that the North-West had the highest murder cases, recording over 206,030, compared to the South-West, which had the lowest murder rate at 15,693.

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NBS said that, nationally, more than 51,887,032 crime incidents were experienced by households during the time frame of the report.

The North-West (14,402,254) reported the highest incidences of crime at the household level, followed by the North-Central (8,771,400), while the South-East (6,176,031) reported the least.

The results also show that crime incidences in rural areas (26,526,069) were higher than those in urban areas (25,360,963), as reported by NBS.

Meanwhile, a further 15.8 per cent did not report due to fear of reprisal. However, no household reported that a murder case was resolved by the family, according to the NBS.