By Patriciah Gakonde, Security Intelligence Analyst, Sicuro Group Africa
When the conversation on what secure transportation in Nigeria looks like comes up, an armoured SUV, armed escort and close protection officers will be top of mind. That’s valid, given how much Nigeria’s security environment and transportation risks have made it necessary for organisations to think seriously about safety and security in transportation for their executives, staff and, in other cases, valuable cargo.
Speaking of Nigeria’s security environment, released on 27 August 2026, SBM Intelligence’s report The Capture of Nigeria’s Kidnap Econom tracks the twelve months between July 2025 and June 2026, a period in which 7,825 people were abducted across 1,713 kidnap and kidnap-related incidents, a 66% jump in victims from the year before, with at least 1,142 people killed. It doesn’t stop there. The central finding of this report is about who benefited from the ransom: the JAS faction of Boko Haram. They collected 90% of all ransom paid, from just eight incidents. SBM frames this as a shift in the structure of the country’s kidnap economy, suggesting that ordinary criminal gangs, despite generating the majority of incidents, are not even benefiting; Boko Haram is.
Beyond the active security risk, crashes, an obvious risk everywhere and not only in Nigeria, also need to be considered as part of any serious approach to transport security. According to NBS and FRSC data released in May 2026, Nigeria recorded 2,720 road crashes in the first quarter of 2026 alone. Lagos moves roughly 264 cars per kilometre during rush hour, against a world average of 11. The North-Central zone, home to Abuja, had the highest number of crashes at 752, followed by the South-West at 699.
Beyond insecurity and the roads, a few other risks deserve a place on the list. Heavy traffic in Lagos and Abuja has bred a specific kind of conmanship known locally as “one-chance,” where criminals pose as drivers or fellow passengers and rob, assault or, in rare cases, kill people who accept an unplanned ride. This risk has claimed lives in places like Abuja’s Kubwa Expressway. Both cities also see recurring protests and civil unrest, often around predictable flashpoints like Lagos Island or Abuja’s Central Business District, disruptive enough that foreign missions issue standalone alerts when they’re expected. And we shouldn’t forget seasonal flooding, worsening in Lagos as rainy seasons stretch longer each year, which regularly submerges major corridors and has even shut down terminal operations at Murtala Muhammed International Airport.
With all these risks, among many others, considered, the conversation on what the safest options for secure transportation are in Nigeria carries great importance, given that the cost of an incident is higher than the cost of the measures taken to prevent it, for the commercial conversation. Getting safety and security in transportation right, in other words, is not a cost centre; it’s risk management.
THE OPTIONS.
Air Travel with a Secure Ground Transfer
For some journeys, flying removes most of the road exposure entirely. In May 2026, former House of Representatives member Abba Anas was kidnapped on the Kaduna-Abuja highway while travelling from Kano to Abuja for a political meeting. Ransom was paid, but he died anyway. As much as we would like to think this was an isolated case, commercial drivers who use that road told Premium Times that attacks had resumed around Jere, Rijana and Katari after a period of relative calm. They even stated that drivers now avoid early morning and evening trips altogether.
With that, flying is a better call on this route. A traveller can skip the highway entirely, fly into Kaduna or Abuja, and then cover the last stretch with a short, controlled transfer instead of hours on a road with a documented pattern of attacks. Sicuro Group’s Secure Journey Management service has successfully delivered this to different executives travelling in Nigeria, pairing air travel with vetted ground transport for a fully managed, secure journey management in Nigeria approach from door to door.
A Vetted Driver in a Conventional Vehicle
For daily movement in Lagos and Abuja, the risk may not always be insecurity out on the highway; rather, it may be the person behind the wheel.
In January 2026, Abuja lawyer Princess Chigbo Mediatrix, a former Treasurer of the Nigerian Bar Association’s FCT branch, boarded a black Volkswagen Golf along the Kubwa Expressway. She never arrived. A “one-chance” gang robbed her, demanded ₦3 million, and pushed her from the moving vehicle when she couldn’t pay. Days earlier, a nurse at the Federal Medical Centre in Jabi, Chinemerem Chuwumeziem, boarded a vehicle home after her shift and also never made it back. Both these individuals were just doing something ordinary: getting into a car after work.
With that, we might not want to view a vetted driver as a luxury for routine trips. A driver who’s been properly checked, known and accountable reduces the opening these gangs rely on: an unfamiliar vehicle, an unverified driver, and no one else aware of the route or the timing. This is one of the reasons Sicuro runs every driver through that vetting before they’re ever assigned to a client, treating a vetted driver as a baseline standard for secure transportation, not an add-on.
Routine movement in lower-risk areas often doesn’t need more than a properly managed vehicle and a driver who’s been through real vetting, background checks, driving history, route knowledge, and training in how to respond when a journey starts going off plan.
Driver Plus Close Protection
When the traveller’s profile steps up, the requirement follows in kind. In January 2026, gunmen attacked Aqua Triton Company’s premises in Ogunmakin, near Ibadan, killing a police officer on duty and abducting a Chinese expatriate. This happened at the gate, where staff, including international staff, pass through daily without a second thought. It was also coordinated enough that one officer couldn’t stop the incident.
This exposes the need for a close protection officer, present to read the environment around a traveller during arrivals, meetings and stops. It is important that we know private CPOs in Nigeria cannot legally carry firearms. Section 17 of Nigeria’s Private Guard Companies Act 1986 states that no person licensed under the Act “shall bear or possess any firearm or ammunition in the course of his duties.” Armed protection sits with MOPOL alone. MOPOL liaison is therefore an important aspect of armed protection, something Sicuro has built over time, and a core part of how transport security is actually delivered on the ground in Nigeria rather than just planned on paper.
Armoured Transportation and Coordinated Convoy
I’d like us to consider an incident that happened in November 2022, because I think history informs our decisions. Seni Awosika, Managing Director of IGPES Oil and Gas, was travelling with a two-vehicle police escort in Port Harcourt when gunmen disguised in military uniform intercepted the convoy on the Rumuokoro flyover. They killed all three police escorts and abducted him. The vehicles were moving together and the escort was armed, but neither vehicle was armoured, and there was no indication of a coordinated response plan built around the route. The gap here is the combination of armed personnel without vehicle protection or a plan to back them. This is what an armoured vehicle with a MOPOL escort and CPOs seek to close.
Armour buys time if a vehicle comes under fire. A properly built convoy, lead, principal and support vehicles, lets the group respond as a unit. This is also the tier with the least room for error. More vehicles means more communication and more that has to hold together if something goes wrong. For high-value logistics, high-profile individuals or corridors with a documented attack history, this is the deliberate answer, built around current route intelligence and a clear response plan before the vehicles move, the highest tier of secure transportation available for the highest-risk journeys.
Where This Leaves You
Every option above helps us see that secure transportation for your organisation, or for you as an individual, is only as good as its match to the actual risk on that journey. The risk on that specific route, at that specific time, for that specific traveller.
Sicuro Group’s Travel Risk Management framework and secure journey management are built to allow organisations to access a service tailored to them, rather than defaulting to one tier for every trip. For an organisation that just needs secure journey management, Sicuro Group makes sure that single trips are covered end to end, the assessment, the driver, the route, the response plan, without requiring a long-term programme.
For organisations that need more, the same framework scales into full oversight: real-time tracking through SicuroPeople and SicuroTrack, 24/7 GSOC monitoring and response, and case ownership built around ISO 31030, so every traveller stays visible and accounted for however long the engagement runs, drawing on years of operating across most of the continent’s most demanding environments. It’s this combination, matched tiers, real-time tracking and route intelligence, that defines what genuine transport security and secure journey management in Nigeria look like in practice.
Security Analyst
Patriciah Gakonde is a Security Analyst at Sicuro Group Africa with a background in criminal justice, security management, and investigative work. She is building her expertise in security operations, risk management, and cyber defense.