Hostage Takers Will Turn Over Group of 10 Foreign Captives
Militants in Nigeria announced Monday they were releasing four Britons, three Americans and other foreign hostages, and authorities were heading to a rendezvous point to take custody of the captives.
A message from an e-mail address known to be used by militants said at least 10 foreign hostages would be released to authorities in two restive southern Nigerian oil-producing states.
The governor of one of the states, Bayelsa, was en route to receive a group of foreign hostages, said Ebimo Amungo, the state's spokesman. He had no details on how many hostages were being released, their nationalities or conditions. Officials from the other state, Rivers, weren't immediately available for comment.
The military detachment that patrols in southern Nigeria was aware of the intended handover, but hadn't received any confirmation that it had gone ahead, said a military spokesman, Maj. Sagir Musa.
The militants, who are believed to be generally allied with the main Movement of the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, said the released hostages were to include four Britons, three Americans, a Filipino, a South African and at least one Indian.
The British embassy couldn't immediately confirm any release and the U.S. Embassy wasn't immediately available for comment.
Over 200 foreigners, mostly oil workers, have been kidnapped in a year and a half of rising violence in the region where Africa's biggest oil producer pumps its crude.
Both criminal gangs and militants pressing for more state oil revenues for their impoverished areas take hostages, who are generally released unharmed after a ransom is paid. Over two dozen hostages are known to be in captivity across Nigeria's south.
The militants said they were releasing the hostages on "humanitarian grounds," while indicating they would continue attacks despite conciliatory words from new President Umaru Yar'Adua.
Yar'Adua said in his inaugural address last month that he considered the crisis in the Niger Delta one of the stiffest facing his unruly nation of 140 million people.
The main militant group, Movement for the Emancipation for the Niger Delta, said it would halt attacks for one month to give Yar'Adua time to come up with a plan for a final solution to the region's problems. That militant group said it wasn't involved in any release Monday.
The militants making the statement are thought to be an ethnic Ijaw group that claims affiliation with MEND, an umbrella for criminal and militant bands operating in the vast region of swamps and creeks.
Indian workers flee Niger Delta after abductions
Expatriate workers including Indians are fleeing the Niger Delta in Nigeria because of unending abductions by militants.
Indian company Indorama, which bought Nigeria's Eleme Petrochemical plant in Rivers State, has said the plant has been shut because 120 of its expatriate workers, mostly Indians, had relocated from the region.
The chairman of the Indorama workers union, Kriss Natty, said about 3,000 people of the Niger Delta employed by the company might also lose their jobs, unless the company got government backing to provide security.
Niger Delta militants abducted 12 Indians - eight workers, two of their wives and two children - from the living quarters of the company early June.
Natty said that before the complete shutdown, the company's production activities had dropped by 80 percent.
"The fleeing expatriates," he said, "promised to be back when the security situation in the state and in the Niger Delta improved."
Rivers State governor Celestine Omehia said the abducted Indians had been traced to a neighbouring state.
He expressed regret that the impression was given that the state was unsafe for expatriate workers since more than 16 of them were kidnapped in June alone.
Meanwhile, Oronto Douglas, chairman of a Niger-Delta-based NGO Community Defence Law Foundation, has delivered a manifesto of the Niger Delta people to the Nigerian government.
The manifesto, he said, would serve as a useful tool for the government of President Umaru Yar'Adua in its quest for an enduring solution to the Niger Delta crisis.
Part of the manifesto demanded the creation of a peaceful mechanism for the restructuring of Nigeria to guarantee self-determination and true fiscal federalism.
It also demanded the abrogation of laws that robbed the Niger Delta people of their land and resources and an end to environmentally damaging extractive activities, including gas flaring.
Douglas said the manifesto also demanded the provision of a social security scheme for the people of the Niger Delta and community shareholding in the extractive sector.
Myriad groups of militant youths from the Niger Delta have been abducting expatriate workers in the region to back their demand for a greater say in the exploitation of oil and gas endowments.
No Foreign Firm To Manage Crisis In Niger Delta
Delta State governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, has said there was no plan by the Federal Government to engage any international conflict management firm to manage the Niger Delta problem.
Rather, he said, the governors of the Niger Delta region especially those of Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states were given added responsibility to monitor the security situation of the region.
Uduaghan also read riot acts to Uvwie youths, asking them to behave or face the wrath of the law.
The governor, who disclosed this in Warri at his maiden media chat, said the President has asked the governors of the region to work together as a team so as to achieve a total peace and harmony at the shortest possible time.
The governor just returned from Abuja, where the Niger Delta governors met with the President.
He said the security of the region was topmost in the agenda during which the governors of Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states were specifically instructed to work together in ensuring that the security situation within their area is adequately monitored.
While soliciting the support and corporation of the press in ensuring the success of the assignment, Uduaghan it to always cross-check its information especially those bordering on the security matters before publishing to avoid a mix up.
On the current crisis in Uvwie Local Government Area, the governor said the state government would nolonger condole lawlessness, which has been the trade mark of Uvwie youths, adding that some people have already been arrested in connection with the current happenings in the area.
The governor pointed out that the state government was prepared to confront the problem of Uvwie youths, which has been a recurring decimal with all seriousness, while urging those behind the problem to behave as his administration will handle any further lawlessness within the area with all severity it deserves.
On the Joint military taskforce (JTF), Uduaghan said JTF was a Federal Government outfit and that its withdrawal can only be ordered by the Federal Government which can only be informed by the people’s attitude, maintaining that there should be enough evidence that JTF presence in this area was no longer relevant before ordering their withdrawal.
Five facts on Nigerian oil rebel Asari
The Nigerian Supreme Court refused bail on Friday to Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a 43-year-old former militia leader from the oil-producing Niger Delta whose release is demanded by armed groups in the anarchic region. Following are five facts about Asari.
* A Muslim convert and member of the royal family in the traditional Kalabari Kingdom in oil-producing Rivers state, Asari rose to prominence in the Ijaw Youth Council, which promotes the rights of the majority ethnic group in the Niger Delta.
* He set up his own militia, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, in 2002-2003 with support from then Rivers state Governor Peter Odili. He later fell out with Odili, who sponsored a rival militia leader, Ateke Tom, to fight Asari.
* In late 2004, Asari's militia fought gun battles against Ateke Tom and Nigerian security forces from remote jungle camps. His threat to wage "all-out war on the Nigerian state" drove oil prices above $50 per barrel for the first time.
* Asari cut a deal with then President Olusegun Obasanjo in late 2004 to lay down arms in exchange for amnesty. He retreated to a guarded villa in Rivers state capital Port Harcourt, where oil industry sources said he ran a lucrative protection racket.
* Since his arrest in September 2005, Asari has regained prestige in the eyes of many Niger Delta militants, who have escalated violence and disrupted oil production. Asari's trial has dragged on from one adjournment to the next without tackling a substantive issue and he has complained of ill treatment by the State Security Services, who are detaining him.
Shell to resume output when safe (Wire Reports)
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company has pledged to restore lost production output in Nigeria and return its staff only when it is safe to do so.
The United Kingdom had on Friday, advised all Britons to leave the troubled Niger Delta region, particularly Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa states because of the high risk of kidnapping and other armed attacks.
Although there is no official directive to that effect, Shell said it would support the relocation of any Briton or expatriate staff by “providing them with flights and other logistics,” Shell’s Nigerian office said in Lagos on Sunday.
“The President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, has said in his first days, very clear, that he is very concerned about the situation and that he will take action,” Shell Chief Executive Officer, Jeroen Van der Veer, said on Saturday in an interview at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia. “I can’t forecast when our staff will go back.”
Despite the continued turmoil in Nigeria, which caused production loss of 477,000 barrels per day, or the fact that the Nigerian government skims off 95 per cent of the profits for the oil production on land, Shell said it had no plans to pull out from the oil-rich region.
With its 70 years operating experience, Shell, at its Annual General Meeting of shareholders in Scheveningen, the Netherlands in May, instead said, it wanted to greatly expand production, including oil production at sea.
“The world simply needs the energy from Nigeria,” Van der Veer told shareholders at the meeting.
Shell’s Nigerian joint oil venture has lost hundreds of thousands of barrels in daily production from the western Niger Delta since early 2006, because of militant violence. Van der Veer said on April 5 that lost output might resume “in months.”
Crude oil exports from the Forcados terminal, operated by Shell’s Nigerian venture, have stopped for more than a year. Van der Veer said he did not know when they would resume.
While high oil prices have bolstered Shell’s profit, the Nigerian losses contributed to a one per cent decline in its global oil and gas production last year and the company, headquartered in The Hague, has also had to trim forecasts for output growth.
Although conditions remain “extremely difficult” even as “everyday there is sabotage and oil leaks,” the Shell chief said he would stick to previous “conservative” guidance for the company’s 2007 production, in which “we have assumed that no major production is coming back” in Nigeria.
Once it is safe for staff to return, Shell will need to check equipment, some of which had been left unattended for a year, before it can restart production, Van der Veer said.
Group Demands Reversal of Sale of Refineries, Others (Vanguard)
A GROUP of business in the South, South under the name of Oil Industry South, South Business Association (OISSBA), has faulted the last minute sale of Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries, Egbin Power station by President Obasanjo and alleged plans to sell Warri refinery and Delta Electricity Power Business Unit (DEPBU) Ughelli of PHCN, without due process, warning that the people of South, South would not take the sales lightly.
OISSBA in a statement by its coordinator, Architect Ilenre Austin Emuan, lamented that these actions by Obasanjo was not only illegal, insulting on the sensitivity of Nigerians, but a further attempt to deny the people of the South, South their God-given resources.
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The statement read in part: "First, we consider some of these landmark businesses in question to be Nigerians' collective heritage held in trust for all Nigerians by the South-South zone. Secondly, as a collective will of the people in business we are aware that some of these businesses, such as the NNPC cannot be privatized; though only some of its units can be commercialized as stipulated by the law which established the corporation, and upon which the National Council of Privatization has acted before now.
We are concerned, and also note with chagrin the systematic impunity with which the outgone government illegally sold the Port Harcourt refinery, and its intention to do the same with the Warri refinery and Delta Electricity Power Business Unit (DEPBU) Ughelli, without giving the least consideration to the feelings of Nigerians in general and South-South in particular. We feel this is an unfair and illegal act that has further insulted the sensitivity of our dear zone, which remains the only golden goose that lays the golden eggs but without benefitting from the eggs.
Over the years, our sons and some investment experts have had cause to question the rationale of politicizing the setting of basic business interests, which most often are responsible for the failure of such enterprises before their take off. For example, if we may ask, which is more cost effective?"
Hostage takers hit Lagos (Sunday Tribune)Affluent Nigerians with children in primary and post-primary schools in Lagos State and its environs may have been the latest target of hostage-takers in the Niger-Delta region. This is following the recent abduction of a five-year-old girl, Chiloka Madubugwu, by some hoodlums from a private school (names withheld), in Orile-Iganmu area of the state.
Sunday Tribune investigations revealed that no sooner than the girl was kidnapped that her abductors transported her to Port Harcourt, Rivers State, called her father, Mr Jude Madubugwu, and demanded for the sum of N3million as ransom for her release, failure which she would be slaughtered.
However, Sunday Tribune was informed by an authoritative family source that prior to the telephone call by the hoodlums, who were still at large as at the time of filing this report , the family lawyers of the Madubugwus, Messers Festus Keyamo and Co, advised them to be on the look out for any strange call, papers on their wall or doors and gate among others since cases of kidnapping and demand for ransom had become so rampant in the country.
Accordingly, the source, who craved for anonymity at the weekend, added that true to type, a strange call came the following day from somebody who gave his name as Master Butchery, just as it stated further that the so-called Master Butchery gave an instruction that the parents of the victim should pay N3million.
Speaking further, the source said, “before the father of the five-year-old girl could ask who the caller was, the caller switched off the phone only to call back the following day, requesting that the girl’s class teacher who had been arrested by the police over the incident, be released forthwith, as not releasing the teacher immediately amounted to risking the life of the kid.”
ST findings further revealed that when Master Butchery was asked on the mode of payment, he was said to have told the father of Chiloka that he shouldn’t be faster than his shadow while stressing that every necessary detail on how it would be paid would be given to Mr. Madubugwu shortly.
Meanwhile, Mr. Madubugwu was alleged to have paid the said N1million ransom for the release of his child to a newly opened account owned by one Kingsley Abu at Aba branch of a new generation bank, as the kidnappers were said to have withdrawn the money at the Port-Harcourt branch of the same bank later after which the girl was dumped at a branch of a eatery in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where a pastor friend of the Madubugwu had gone to pick up the girl.
Consequently, when Sunday Tribune visited the school for confirmation of the story, the headmaster of the nursery and primary school said it was true.
He, however, pointed out that the school authorities had even before the incident put in place security measures to prevent such an unfortunate incident. However, when he was asked why the school security guards and teachers had to allow the hoodlums to take away the child before the arrival of her parents on that fateful day, he said he had no answer to that.
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