Kidnapping fears strain family bonds in Nigeria

Abubakar Abdullahi has not seen his wife and five children in almost three months because he is too afraid to visit his home town for fear of being kidnapped by criminal gangs roaming Nigeria's countryside.

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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 only calling his family living in the town of Kontagora, 200 kilometres away.

Kontagora is located halfway from 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 told reporters at a restaurant in the city.