“Don’t Pay, I Will Kill Myself If They Release Me”: The Last Words of a 23-Year-Old Before Bandits Shot Her.
The story spread quietly at first, shared in whispers on WhatsApp groups, then across social media in waves of disbelief and anger. It was too painful to be true, yet too detailed to be dismissed as just another rumour.
A 23-year-old girl, barely an adult with her whole life ahead of her, was taken by bandits. The ransom demand came swiftly: 50 million naira. Her family begged, pleaded, and cried for mercy. The bandits refused to reduce a single kobo.
For two weeks, her father fought with everything he had. He borrowed money from everyone he knew. He sold what he could. He bled himself dry trying to raise every kobo. Finally, after fourteen agonising days, he had the 50 million.
He called the bandits, desperate to hear his daughter’s voice one more time before making the payment. She came on the phone. And instead of begging to be saved, she told her father something that shattered whatever hope remained.
“Don’t pay. I will kill myself if they release me.”
For fourteen unthinkable days, those monsters had been raping her. Over and over. Daily. Hourly. They destroyed her soul while she was still breathing. When the bandits heard what she said to her father, they put a bullet in her head.
Then they sent her family the video and pictures of her final moment.
That girl didn’t die. She was murdered. After being tortured in ways no human being should ever suffer. The system that was supposed to protect her failed her completely. But in her final act, she showed a kind of bravery that is difficult to put into words. She chose to spare her father the burden of paying for a life that had already been taken from her.
This is not an isolated incident. Between July 2022 and June 2023, 3,620 people were abducted in 582 kidnapping incidents across Nigeria, with ransom payouts amounting to 302 million naira, according to SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based geopolitical analytic research company .
The situation has only worsened. Amnesty International reported that at least 1,100 people were abducted in northern Nigeria between January and April 2026 alone . These are not just numbers. They are mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons. People with dreams, families, and futures.
In Kwara State, bandits attacked Woro village in March 2026, killing 200 people and abducting 176 others . A resident of that community told Amnesty International: “They didn’t just kill, they stole our life away. They abducted 176 people, including my second wife and my three daughters. One of them is only two years old. I have seen the video they posted on social media. I heard my wife’s voice. I saw my people. It has been almost two months now, and they are still in that forest” .
In Zamfara State, bandits killed 38 people from Banga village despite receiving a 50 million naira ransom for their release . According to the local government chairman, most of the victims were young people who were slaughtered like rams . Survivors who were forced to witness the killings reported that three pregnant women gave birth while in captivity, but all the newborns died due to lack of care.
This is not about politics anymore. This is about our humanity. It is about mothers who will never hold their daughters again. Fathers who gather ransom only to receive a corpse. Young girls who go to sleep terrified that tonight might be their turn.
The brutality is not random. It follows a pattern. Families are forced to sell everything they own. Communities pool resources. People beg, borrow, and sometimes steal just to meet the demands. And even when they pay, there is no guarantee of safety.
In Edo State, which has become one of Nigeria’s kidnapping hotspots, a medical doctor paid 50 million naira for his freedom. His brother, who was also abducted, was killed . In another incident, gunmen abducted nine family members along the Benin-Akure Road and demanded 260 million naira. Four victims remain in captivity.
The captors routinely torture, beat, and starve victims until their relatives can pay . Victims are often raped. Some are killed even after payment is made. A coalition of more than 60 women’s rights organisations recently warned that the country is currently under siege, with leadership prioritising political manoeuvring over the protection of citizens.
The social media user who posted the story of the 23-year-old girl ended his message with a bitter observation: “The north is more interested in discussing Hadiza Garbo/Saleem Goje than talks about this… Allah is sufficient for us.”
He was pointing out something uncomfortable. In the middle of a kidnapping and murder crisis, public attention often drifts to political gossip and entertainment. The horrors happening in villages and forests become background noise. People grow numb.
But numbness is a luxury we cannot afford. Every day, more families are torn apart. More daughters are taken. More fathers are forced to choose between impossible options.
This is not a problem that will solve itself. The Northern Comrades Movement of Nigeria recently issued a strong warning, describing the security situation across the 19 Northern states as “one of the most challenging security periods in recent history” . They demanded immediate, decisive action from government at all levels.
The group’s national chairman stated that from January to June 2026 alone, communities in Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kaduna, Niger, Benue, Plateau, Borno, Yobe, Oyo, and other states suffered devastating attacks . “Hundreds of innocent citizens have been killed, many more injured, while thousands of families have been displaced from their homes,” he said.
The group proposed a nine-point roadmap, including strengthening intelligence gathering, deploying modern surveillance technologies, enhancing border security to prevent the influx of arms, and increasing recruitment and training for security personnel . They also called for identifying and prosecuting the sponsors and financiers of terrorism and banditry, regardless of status.
That 23-year-old girl did not die because her father failed to pay. She died because a system has failed to protect its citizens. She died because she had already been destroyed in ways that made returning to normal life seem impossible.
Her last words to her father were not a plea for rescue. They were a plea to be let go. She had been through so much that death seemed preferable to coming home with what had been done to her.
No family should have to make these choices. No father should have to decide between paying a ransom and receiving a corpse. No daughter should have to choose between death and the shame of what she endured.
This is not about politics. It is about whether we still care about each other. It is about whether we have lost the ability to be outraged by cruelty. It is about whether we can look at a grieving father and tell him that we see his pain.
The bandits who killed that young woman are still out there. More families are waiting for news they are afraid to hear. More daughters are being taken. The question is whether we will keep scrolling past their stories or whether we will demand that something be done.
“Allah is sufficient for us,” the social media user wrote. But Allah also expects us to act. To protect the vulnerable. To hold those in power accountable. To refuse to accept a world where a 23-year-old girl’s final words are: “Don’t pay. I will kill myself if they release me.”
“Don’t Pay, I Will Kill Myself If They Release Me”: The Last Words of a 23-Year-Old Before Bandits Shot Her.
Discover more from TOKTOK9JA MEDIA
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
