MINNA, Nigeria: Abubakar Abdullahi has not seen his wife and five children in almost three months because he is too afraid to visit his hometown for fear of being kidnapped by criminal gangs roaming Nigeria’s countryside.
He has remained in Minna, the capital of the central Nigerian state of Niger, where he works as a civil servant. 
He has resorted to calling only his family in Kontagora, 200 km away.
Kontagora is located halfway between Papiri, where more than 300 school children were abducted from their dormitories two weeks ago in one of Nigeria’s worst mass kidnappings.
“I’m too scared to visit my family because of kidnappers,” the 45-year-old Abdullahi said at a restaurant in the city.
“I only communicate with them on the phone and send them upkeep money electronically at the end of each month,” said Abdullahi as he waited for his order.
He is yet to overcome the trauma of the kidnapping of his elder brother in 2022 from his Kontagora home and held for three months before he was freed after the family was forced to raise 50 million naira ($35,000) ransom.
Abdullahi’s dilemma is not peculiar to him, but shared by many residents of Minna, now separated from their families and friends in the countryside over kidnapping fears.
Mamman Alassan has not visited his village in Shiroro district since he moved to Minna three years ago.
“We are a culturally and religiously mixed society with close kinship ties, but the current security situation has made people stop going to see their people in the villages,” James David Gaza, a Catholic priest, said after mass outside his church.
“This is pulling us apart and destroying our social bonds,” Gaza said.
With families getting together for Christmas lunches and exchanging wrapped gifts in a few weeks, in parts of Nigeria, these will be through phone calls and electronic money transfers.
“All social interactions with people in rural areas, such as weddings, naming ceremonies, and funerals, have considerably reduced due to the prevailing situation,” said Isyaku Ibrahim Gada, a perfumer at the bustling Minna market.
Niger is one of several states in northwest and central Nigeria that criminal gangs have for years terrorized, called bandits who raid villages, abduct residents, and burn homes after looting them.
Although they live in the forest, bandits keep track of people in communities through networks of local informants who spy on them and report potential targets.
“They believe everyone from the city has money, which is why we are always their target,” Abdullahi said.
Niger is the largest of Nigeria’s 36 states in terms of landmass, covering more than twice the area of Belgium.
Its vast forests provide sanctuary for bandits. Once a victim is seized, escape is rare.
Victims are only released after ransom payment, and those whose families fail to pay are killed.
Isah Usman, 52, skipped his brother-in-law’s wedding in Kontagora two weeks ago.
“We no longer visit home; we only call and send whatever financial help we can offer to your relatives over there,” said Usman, a civil servant.
Even the recent arrest of eight suspected bandit informants in Kontagora will not make Usman change his mind.
Two weeks to Christmas, business is “slow” and “dull” for Ifeoma Onyejekwe, a second-hand clothes trader.
Hailing from eastern Nigeria, she has, over the years, built a strong bond with her customers from rural communities, whom she considers “relations.”
But these customers have stopped coming, and she can’t take her business to them either, out of fear of highway kidnappings.
“They are afraid to come in, and we are afraid to go and meet them,” said Onyejekwe.
“The relationship now is not that close.”