Nigeria Security Update #1 030607

Another six kidnapped in Port Harcourt

Seven minutes before midnight yesterday, eight suspected armed militants, disguised in mobile police (MOPOL) uniforms, stormed the premises of the Schlumberger/Anadril Compound around Rumuogba Estate in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and abducted four expatriates said to be working for the company.

Dependable security sources told Sunday Tribune that at the gate of the company, the gunmen pretended to be looking for one of their mobile police colleagues, who, they lied, ought to be on duty there.

When they finally gained access into the company’s Club House inside the compound, they purportedly took hostage four of the expatriates relaxing there.

An eye witness who claimed to be a staff of the company but pleaded anonymity, told Sunday Tribune that the hostages were Salman H, a Pakistani, Jan Van de Mortel, a Dutch, James Thorburn, English and Massoud Hamidi, a French national.

It could not be confirmed if there was any exchange of gunfire, as our correspondents were not allowed entry into the premises to confirm information on the kidnap saga.

Attempts to obtain confirmation of the incident from the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu, and state director of SSS, Mr. Kola Adesina, was fruitless as both officers did not pick their phones when Sunday Tribune called in the afternoon.

Twenty-four hours before the kidnapping of the four expatriates 10 Indians, including two women, two kids, the managing director of an Indian firm, Indorama, core investors in the Eleme Petrochemical Company Limited (EPCL), in Port Harcourt, three other management staff of the firm and two othrs, were abducted at their Akpajo residence in Rivers State.

1 Killed as Militants Kidnap 6 Russians, 1 Briton

NIGER-Delta crisis deepened weekend, as militants kidnapped six Russians, a Briton and three other men in separate operations in Ikot Abasi and Port Harcourt.

The six Russians were kidnapped from an aluminium firm and a driver attached to one of the firms; Group Five, shot dead.

Russian envoy in the country confirmed the kidnap, saying they have requested the Nigerian government to take urgent steps to secure the men's release.

The abducted men are staff of Russia Aluminium (Rusal). They were kidnapped after their apartment was blown up with explosives.

In the latest spate of kidnappings, gunmen also late Friday seized the workers from the premises of oil services company Schlumberger in Port Harcourt, the police said.

"We can confirm that one Briton has been kidnapped from the Schlumberger Anadrill Field Compound in Port Harcourt," a foreign office spokesman said.

The Foreign Office had no further details on the Briton's identity.

Diplomats in Nigeria said earlier the seized workers had British, Dutch, French, and Pakistani nationality.

Hours after the new kidnappings, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the region's most prominent armed group, freed six foreign hostages and announced a month-long moratorium in attacks on petroleum sites.

It was not clear which group carried out the latest attack on the compound of an aluminium-smelting plant belonging to Russia Aluminium (Rusal), the world's largest aluminium producer.

"They blew up their victims' apartments with dynamite before taking them away", Felix Nxong, general manager of the plant, said.

More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped since militants increased their attacks in late 2005, with more than 100 foreign workers taken this year alone, the Associated Press reported.

More than two dozen foreigners are currently thought to be in captivity. Eleven were captured in two separate incidents last Friday. President Yar'Adua has said tackling the unrest in the south is one of his top priorities.

Two Filipinos rescued

Police freed two Filipino nationals who were held hostage for a few hours in southern Nigeria on Sunday, Rivers State police chief Felix Ogbaudu said.

He said the Filipino hostages were freed by police at the Elelenwo waterfront on the outskirts of Port Harcourt. The two men spent around four hours in captivity.

Ogbaudu said they were sailors on the MV Seacor, a vessel anchored off Port Harcourt.

An industry source had earlier said they were employees of West Africa Offshore, a drilling company based in Port Harcourt.

Earlier, Nigerian gunmen abducted six Russians in a raid on an expatriate compound that left a Nigerian driver dead, in the latest in a spate of kidnappings in the country's oil-rich south.

"Early this morning, gunmen burst into the compound on two minibuses near the ALSCON factory and kidnapped six factory employees, Russian citizens," Russia's ambassador to Nigeria, Igor Melikhov was quoted as saying by Interfax.

"A Nigerian driver was shot dead" in the raid in the southern state of Akwa Ibom, he told fellow agency ITAR-TASS. "One can say the kidnapping was most probably carried out for a ransom."

The Russian ambassador demanded that the Nigerian authorities "take urgent measures to obtain the liberation of the (Russian) citizens."

Moscow-based Russian aluminium company RUSAL said in a statement that the attack was on a residential compound in Ikot Abasi town in southeastern Akwa Ibom State, where it recently took over the management of the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON).

Before these two latest attacks, at least 11 foreigners were taken hostage by unidentified groups in the oil-rich Niger Delta in the space of 24 hours, bringing to around 50 the number of expatriates kidnapped since May 1.

Late on Friday gunmen kidnapped four foreign workers from the premises of oil services company Schlumberger in southern Nigeria's oil capital Port Harcourt, police said. Diplomats said the men included Dutch, French, British and Pakistani nationals.

Earlier Friday, a group of Indians -- three senior expatriate staff and two women and two children from the same family -- were seized in a pre-dawn raid from the residential compound of chemical company Indorama, also in the southern Rivers State.

Since the start of 2006, when the number of kidnappings began to rise sharply in the Niger Delta, some 190 expatriates have been seized. Most have been released unharmed after a few days or a few weeks.

The kidnappers are a mixture of militant groups capable of carrying out daring raids on deepwater oil facilities, members of disgruntled local communities and criminal gangs out to make ransom money.

Dozens of Filipinos have been abducted since the start of the year in southern Nigeria, but few, if any, of the most recent kidnappings in the region have involved Russian citizens.

Last month gunmen kidnapped a Belarussian woman working for a catering company in southern Nigeria's oil capital Port Harcourt.

She was released later the same month. It was not clear whether her abductors had received all or part of the 1.2 million-dollar (880,000-euro) ransom that RIA Novosti news agency had said they had demanded.

Both the Nigerian government and companies systematically deny paying ransoms but the recent increase in kidnappings that appear devoid of any political agenda suggests that kidnappers often do receive such payments.

Nigeria's new president Umaru Yar'Adua, who was sworn in last week, has vowed to make the unrest in the south of the country one of his top priorities.

A summit meeting on the subject he had initially convened for Monday was however postponed indefinitely after participants asked for more time to prepare.

Police rescue kidnapped Chinese worker

The Nigerian military has stormed a hideout and freed one of two Chinese workers abducted by unknown gunmen more than two months ago in the country's southeast, the police said Monday.

"One of the men was rescued by the army at the weekend," Anambra State police spokesman Fidelis Agbo told AFP, refusing to give details of the operation.

Local press said military officers stormed a hideout used by the captors in the nearby Ebonyi State, following a tipoff.

The Vanguard newspaper said the whereabouts of the second Chinese worker abducted on March 17 from a Chinese-run factory in the town of Nnewi, were still unknown, but added security forces had stepped up efforts to locate him.

The identities of the two men have not been made public and Chinese diplomats in Nigeria have been reluctant to speak about the case, the first time foreigners had been abducted in Anambra State.

Most recent hostage takings in Nigeria have been in the oil-rich states of the south.

Since the start of 2006, some 190 expatriates have been seized in the region. Most have been released unharmed after a few days or a few weeks.

The kidnappers are a mixture of militant groups capable of carrying out daring raids on deepwater oil facilities, members of disgruntled local communities and criminal gangs out to make ransom money.

Five Chinese telecoms workers were abducted in early January in Nigeria and released unharmed about two weeks later.

Another nine Chinese oil workers were kidnapped on January 25 before being freed unharmed after 11 days in captivity.

Oil Workers Threaten Takeover

Oil workers have threatened to “physically” stop the takeover of both Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries by their new owner, Blue Star Oil, a Nigerian consortium.

The workers, under the aegis of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Employees (NUPENG), said they would stop Blue Star Oil from taking possession of the refineries.
According to them, the price of $561 million paid for the Port Harcourt refinery was far below cost of materials and spare parts currently in store and valued at over $800 million and those in transit valued at $9.2 million.

These, they said, were apart from the crude oil stock valued at $65 million as well as finished and intermediate products in stock valued at $42 million and a storage tank valued at $625 million, all in good conditions.

Jointly addressing newsmen at the Port Harcourt refinery complex weekend, Comrade Osu Lambert, chairman of NUPENG and Comrade Adamu Umar of PENGASSAN, both alleged that former President Olusegun Obasanjo sold the refineries to himself and his friends in a hurried manner to beat the handover deadline.

They alleged that, since Obasanjo has been proved to hold shares in Blind Trust in Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp), which is in the consortium that bought the refineries, he simply sold the complexes to himself and friends without taking into consideration the interest of Nigerians.

The sale, which they said included the Bonny Terminal and Okrika jetty which acts as loading bay was far below the cost of the two facilities alone which is $1.6 billion.
They argued that the process of the sale lacked transparency and alleged that titles to national legacies were handed over to few Nigerians in a “less than transparent” manner in the name of privatisation.

“Stemming from the above, the summary of the ridiculous auction is that the PHRC Ltd known as the crown jewel of the nation’s refineries is worth over $5 billion. Its 51 percent equity is estimated at $2.6 billion while Blue Star Oil Services Consortium paid $561m for the same equity which translates to an unfavorable difference in transaction of approximately $2.03b.

“Therefore, PHRC Branch of PENGASSAN/NUPENG and their members hereby reject the unwholesome transaction in the illegal sale of PHRC which is not to the best interest of the Nigerian public, and further request that the sale of such a priced national asset be revised immediately for the purpose of economic stability”, they insisted.

They reminded Nigerians that the sale “included the old and new refineries, the 60,000 barrels a day capacity old refinery with crude distillation unit, catalytic reforming unit and Liquefied Petroleum Gas unit as well as utility unit and the new refinery with 150,000 barrels a day capacity.”

The new refinery, they said consists of crude distillation unit, catalytic reforming unit, the fluid catalytic cracking unit and the hydrofluoric (HF) Alkylation unit with a total refining capacity of the two being 210,000 barrels a day.

They also said the core investors have no record of refining even a barrel of oil and wondered why they were preferred and hurried in the manner the transaction followed.
They claimed not to be against privatisation but “the interest of workers and due process and diligence ought to be observed.”

Russian hostages well

Six Russian nationals abducted in Nigeria are alive and feeling well, the Russian Embassy in the African state said Monday.

The Russians, who work for the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON), controlled by Russian aluminum giant RUSAL, were abducted by gunmen who broke into their residential premises in the southeastern town of Ikot Abasi Sunday, killing their Nigerian driver.

"Last night we were able to talk to the abducted Russians and learn they were alive and feeling well. That is all I can say at the moment," a diplomat said.

None of the militant groups active in the country has so far claimed responsibility for the abduction or put forward demands, Russia's Foreign Ministry said earlier. But the employees are widely believed to have been abducted for ransom.

RUSAL said it had stepped up security at the residential complex for its employees. Press spokeswoman Olga Sanarova said the company was continuing talks with Nigerian authorities on measures to have the Russians released. Their names have not been disclosed for security reasons.

Nigeria's ambassador to Russia was summoned Monday to the Foreign Ministry over the abduction.

Sergei Lavrov, currently on a visit to South Korea, told journalists: "The Nigerian ambassador in Moscow is to arrive at the Russian Foreign Ministry today for talks on the subject."

Militants fighting against the Nigerian government for greater autonomy in the oil-rich Niger Delta have intensified their attacks lately on industry facilities that are largely run by Western companies.

About 40 people, largely employees of oil companies, have been abducted and released in the country since January 2006. They were mainly nationals of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey and the Philippines.

A Belarusian woman who worked as a senior manager with a local branch of the British services company Compass Group, was kidnapped May 5 and released 12 days later.