Two members of the Oyibos On Line expatriate website (http://www.oyibosonline.com) have some excellent advice regarding armed robbers such as the 15 who killed an American when they raided the hotel he was staying in.
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All, please try to remember if you find yourself in a bad situation, Try to remain calm, do not look these criminals in the eye, give them what they want, don't make sudden moves and be as passive as the situation dictates which is hard as we all have a survival instinct to fight back as I did once here and learned a lesson, the 2nd time on the road from PH to Eket, well we just gave them everything they wanted and they even took all our clothes including our underwear. Try to get a ride back to PH wearing elephant ear leaves around your waist.
So please, remember that in this crazy time, Armed Robberies are at an all time high, gangs, area boys running wild so be very careful out there and try to travel main roads where possible, don't stay out at night late and be safe. It is unfortunate that this thread is about a death of one of all of us, but we must learn a lesson from what is stated as fact which if it is true he fought back or could have been a natural reaction from being woke up at 2:00 AM from a hard sleep and a person will come up from sleep fighting like hell....
Be Careful Everyone.
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Had robbers in our house at 5.45am one morning,did not argue with them just handed over every thing they asked for, they locked us in the bathroom and left.I don't know why I was calm at the time, probably fear, but 2/3 hours later I could not stop shaking.Tex gave good advice, it was what I was told when I first came here8 years ago and thank God I did not forget.Condolences to the family.
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Nigeria oil strike spreads to export terminals
Source: Reuters
Lagos • Nigerian oil unions pulled many staff from crude export terminals on the second day of a strike yesterday, but shipments from the world’s eighth largest exporter were uninterrupted, authorities said.
The strike by union members in the national oil company and the Department of Petroleum Resources, the industry regulator, began on Thursday to protest against the privatization of the country’s largest oil refinery.
The stoppage comes just days before the inauguration of President-elect Umaru Yar’Adua on Tuesday, and is a prelude to a two-day strike planned by all Nigerian trade unions on Monday and Tuesday to protest against rigging in last month’s polls.
“We are withdrawing from export terminals, but everything is still on, on a skeletal basis. We are not shutting down exports yet,” said Peter Esele, leader of the senior staff union Pengassan.
Oil industry sources confirmed that many inspectors had already been withdrawn from oil tanker terminals, which ship about 2.1 million barrels a day.
The strike has already hit domestic fuel supplies, with lengthy fuel queues forming in southern and central Nigeria. Union leaders have said they would target oil production and exports if their demands were not addressed within days.
Talks between the unions and the government failed to get off the ground on Thursday after Energy Minister Edmund Daukoru insisted there would be no negotiations until the strike was called off, unionists said.
“The unions wanted a strong commitment from the government before calling off the strike, but there was no commitment on any of the issues raised,” said Peter Akpatason, president of the junior staff union Nupeng. Another meeting was slated for yesterday.
Shipping agents said between 40 and 45 tankers holding refined products — mainly gasoline and diesel —were waiting at the Lagos port, but it was unclear if the longer-than-usual delays were caused by the strike.
The Nigeria National Petroleum Corp. imports all of Nigeria’s fuel because the country’s four oil refineries are not working, due to poor management and sabotage.
Gas supply to the country’s main thermal power station in Lagos was shut off by the strike, causing longer-than-normal blackouts across the city.
The unions are worried the government has not adequately provided for workers at the 210,000 barrels per day Port Harcourt refinery, which was unexpectedly sold to a consortium of Nigerian and Chinese investors for $561 million last week.'Boatload' of foreigners seized
So many expatriates are being kidnapped in a short period of time that the Associated Press seems to have stopped counting. Depending on which news service you rely on, between six and 11 hostages have been taken by militants since Thursday.
Gunmen on Friday seized a boatload of foreign oil workers, including three Americans, four Britons and a South African, in the latest violence to hit Nigeria's southern petroleum-producing region, officials said.
Nearly 200 foreign workers have been kidnapped in 18 months of attacks on oil companies and security forces in the Niger Delta, where all the crude is pumped in Africa's biggest producer.
The latest seizures came when gunmen stormed a boat owned by a Nigerian oil-services company as it carried the foreigners in the vast region of mangrove swamps and creeks, security force officials said.
U.S. Embassy officials said three Americans were taken and the British embassy reported four Britons missing after the attack. One South African was also taken, Pretoria said.
Security forces in the region earlier said only six people were kidnapped, including an Indian.
U.S. and British embassy officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing embassy prohibitions against their names appearing in public.
On Thursday, five gunmen grabbed a Polish worker heading to his construction project in southern Nigeria and rushed the captive into the lawless oil-rich region's swamps and creeks in a speedboat, officials said.
Over a dozen foreigners seized in the region are currently in captivity.
Some 200 foreign workers have been taken since militants stepped up their attacks against the oil companies and government in late 2005, cutting nearly one-third of Nigeria's daily crude production capacity and sending oil prices toward historic highs in oversees markets.
The militants say they are fighting for the liberation of two of their leaders imprisoned on corruption and treason charges and more oil revenues for their impoverished lands.
But in recent months, criminal gangs have taken up the practice of kidnapping foreigners for ransom. Hostages are generally released unharmed after a payment is made to the captors, although two died in the crossfire when security forces intervened.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer, an OPEC member, and a top supplier of crude to the United States.
Why kidnap of foreigners won’t stop, by NDFF
THE commander of the Niger-Delta Freedom Fighters (NDFF), aka Egbema One, which kidnapped the four American oil workers of Global Industries, an oil servicing company to the Chevron Nigeria Limited on May 8 in Delta state spoke to Saturday Vanguard in the encampment, where the workers are being held hostage in the creek.
Excerpts:
Why did you people kidnap the four Americans?
Our problem is not with the hostages. We decided to hold them hostage as a means of making the oil companies, Chevron Nigeria Limited, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and the government to know that we are neglected. After the discovery of oil in Olobiri, Egbema kingdom was the next and since then, we have not seen any development.
Shell and Chevron have been operating since 1971 and since then, our place has remained undeveloped. The attitude of these three groups made us to take this action because we are being marginalised by them.
Also, we want the detained leader of the Niger-Delta Peoples Volunteer Front (NPDVF), Alhaji Asari-Dokubo, former governor of Bayelsa state, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Ralph Uwazurike, the leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) to be released. Go round and see for yourself, we have no roads in Egbema kingdom where about 95 per cent of oil is produced in Delta state.
We also do not have schools in Egbema kingdom even though we occupy a large section of the state. We need tertiary institutions and employment for the youths of this kingdom.
Besides, we don’t have pipe-borne water in our communities and we want contracts to be awarded to indigenes of Egbema.
These contracts should not be for non-indigenes only while our communities which are facing the threat of being washed away, namely Gbokoda, Opuama and Polobubor should be saved from extinction. We also want them to dredge the canal from Ogbudugbudu-Polobubor and construct the Ogbinbiri-Ofunama-Udo road. Also, we want jetties to be provided to all our communities as well as providing generating plants and building of town halls, market stalls for communities in Egbema kingdom.
We also want commissioners to be appointed from Egbema, GSM masts to be installed in our area, teachers to be provided for our primary and secondary schools. Papa when say make im pikin no sleep, himself no go sleep because the pikin go dey cry and disturb the papa.
But all these things you enumerated are not things the oil companies would do, it is the duty of the government to provide them...
We know that the government is supposed to provide these things for us but the oil companies are making a lot of money from our environment and they are stashing the money abroad. Are you saying that it is not part of their social responsibility to provide some of these things for us. Or which ones have they done?
We know where to hold the government but when we talk about job slots for us in the oil companies, it is the companies we will hold, not the government. You see, our action is not directed at the Chevron alone, it is to the oil companies operating in our area and also for the government to wake up to their responsibilities.
If you say there are no hospitals here, where are sick people taken to?
That is one of our greatest problems. We have to travel a distance of over three hours to take the sick ones to Warri and Sapele. You know what that means; about 1,000 people die every year as a result.
But the Chevron oil company used to visit the oil communities with their houseboat clinics...
That was in the past, we don’t see them again
Why are you holding the oil companies when there is a government agency, the NDDC that was set up to develop the oil communities?
That one, we don’t know what they are doing. They said that they awarded contract for the Udo-Ofunama-Azakurama-Zamagie-Ogbudugbudu-Ogbinbiri –Abere road about two years ago and after the survey was done two years ago, we have not seen them.
Do you know that kidnapping people as your group had just done is a criminal act?
Government and the oil companies can say whatever they want to say about what we are doing (being a criminal act) but we know we are no criminals. The companies take our oil, make money for themselves and the government without taking us into consideration. They invaded our land and took our oil and yet, they call us criminals for saying that they should not continue taking our oil without developing our environment.
You know the Americans and other foreign oil workers have only come here to work, what do you think will happen if Americans in turn start kidnapping Nigerians that had gone to work there too?
Look, it is not really that we want to pick white people as hostages but the truth is that the black man does not have hostage value; I don’t know if you understand what I mean. It is the only the expatriates that have hostage value and we kidnap them because we don’t like seeing them working here while our graduates are left unemployed by the oil companies.
You are calling for development, how can the government bring development to the region when you are causing tension with the kidnapping of oil workers and bombing of oil installations?
If they really say that they will develop the Niger-Delta region, kidnapping will stop. We will even protect the foreign oil workers for them.
But President Obasanjo said long ago that they want to develop the region but the real problem is that you people continue to kidnap oil workers.
He did not mean it. If he meant it, he would not be calling us criminals, he knows that we are fighting for our rights. When the government means it, we will know and we will stop it (kidnapping) for them to do what they have promised. Right now, they promised but didn’t fulfill what they had said. That is the problem.
I learnt that Egbema One kidnapped the Americans in order to be paid ransom. Is this not true?
That is not the truth. We did not kidnap for money. I told you the reasons why we kidnapped the Americans. Or don’t you believe me? We want development in Egbema kingdom.
So, when are you going to be release them?
We will release them anytime Chevron signs agreement with us on the development projects they will site in our place with the government as observer, just to witness what they have said.
What guarantee are you giving Nigerians and the US government in particular concerning the safety of the Americans in your custody?
They are safe, we will not harm them but if they try to send the Joint Task Force to come here to release them by force, then, there will be bloodshed. But as long as they tell us what they will do for us, we will hand them over safely, nothing will happen to them.
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