Abubakar Adam has not seen seven of his 10 children in the two months since armed men snatched them from their boarding school in Nigeria's northern Niger state. He sold his car, a parcel of land, cleaned out his savings and along with other parents sought help from friends and relatives to raise 30 million naira ($72,993) to get their children back. But the bandits just took the money - and one of the men delivering it - leaving Adam with nothing. The rash of kidnappings across the largely poor northwest has left hundreds of parents facing the same desperate quandary: beg, borrow and sell assets, or risk never seeing their children again.