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Margaret Hill, the three-year-old British girl kidnapped in Nigeria, has been freed.
She is back with her family who say she is in good health. No ransom was paid.
An offical said the youngster was handed over to state security servces in Port Harcourt, where she was snatched on Thursday.
Her father Mike Hill told Sky News she had been in the jungle and was covered in mosquito bites Otherwise she was fine.
Mr Hill, who works in the Nigerian oil industry, said: "She has not told us anything yet."
He added: "The pressure has been unbelievable. We stopped eating and couldn't think of anything else.
"The kidnappers did not say who they were, but we don't think they were rebels
"They wanted to swap Margaret for myself but the police said 'no'.
"They also demanded a ransom, but we did not pay anything."
Gunmen grabbed the child from the car in which she was being driven to school when it got stuck in traffic.
Margaret's mother Oluchi said the kidnappers had called her, first demanding the swap and then money.
Mrs Hill said the kidnappers had also threatened to kill her daughter.
Abductions for ransom are common in the oil-producing Niger Delta, where Port Harcourt lies.
However, it is rare for children to be targeted.
Margaret's abduction sparked outrage in Nigeria, not least among militant groups.
They said it would only serve to undermine their campaign for greater local control of oil revenues.
Oil Companies Fed Up
Total SA, Europe’s third largest oil company has said crude production in Nigeria is threatened by insecurity in the West African nation.
“We have decided with other oil companies, especially Shell, that the situation cannot continue like this over the long term,’’ the Chief Executive Officer, Total, Christophe de Margerie, told reporters on Saturday on the sidelines of a conference in Aix-en-Provence.
“We need lasting solutions for this instability.”
Oil production, the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, fell to 2.15million barrels a day in the first quarter from 2.34million barrels in the same period of 2006, the Central Bank of Nigeria on Saturday said.
The drop was caused by the “continued restiveness in the Niger Delta area,” which accounts for all the country’s oil output, it added.
More than 200 expatriates have been kidnapped since the start of last year by militants and other criminal groups in the oil-producing region.
A three-year-old British girl was abducted on July 5, the third child to be kidnapped in the area, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation.
A day before the girl’s kidnapping, Nigerian gunmen abducted five expatriate workers from a Lonestar rig that was working for Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Nigerian venture in the Soku field.
Shell’s venture, the Shell Petroleum Development Co, pumps about half of Nigeria’s oil.
Almost two-thirds of the company’s daily production has been halted as a result of leaks, community disputes and militant attacks.
Asari Vehicle Carjacked
A Land Cruiser Jeep, belonging to the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has been snatched by suspected armed robbers in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
According to sources close to the Niger Delta ‘nationalist’, as he prefers to be called, Dokubo-Asari was not in the black Jeep when it was snatched around the Agip Junction area of Port Harcourt at gunpoint.
The sources said that the jeep was being taken to where it was bought for servicing when the robbers blocked it with their vehicle and took it at gunpoint, adding that it was bought just a day before it was snatched.
"The robbers took the car with its occupants as 'hostages', drove them to the waterside and ordered them out.
The leader and spokesperson of the Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC), Cynthia Whyte, confirmed the incident, but said since he was not in town when the incident took place, he did not have enough details on it.
When called for confirmation, the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu, said no such report had reached his office.
In another development, there are fears that three unidentified expatriates might have been abducted by a group of armed hoodlums in Port Harcourt on Sunday.
The expatriates, said to have been abducted around Elekahia area of the city, could not be identified as at press time.
Though Police Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Ireju Barasua, said she had heard of the kidnap, she said she had no further detail.
Airport Traffic Causing Missed Flights (Nigerian Tribune)
Road traffic situation at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, has worsened as many travellers now miss their flights as a result of frequent traffic congestion.
The congestion, which has made movement for airport workers and passengers difficult, was traced to the right granted vehicles outside the airport to use the airport road as an alternative to get to their destinations.
This negates the civil aviation rules as against emrgency periods. According to findings, most of the vehicles now drive through the airport as a way of beating traffic on public roads and for safety.
Some of them are said to be prepared to pay any amount as toll at the gate to have access to the airport road.
Following the problem, especially between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m., when international flights begin their chek-in, it takes travellers close to two hours to move from the local to the international wing, a situation which makes them miss their flights.
The development is coming even as the terminal building of the international airport is becoming congested for passengers.
The congestion is noticeable at the departure hall and the passport control areas where arriving passengers are screened by security officers before going to board.
The situation often leads to passengers going through inconveniences during check-in of their luggage and other security protocols, a situation further compounded by the influx of passengers’ relations who come to see off their loved ones.
Some passengers who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune on the development said that there was urgent need to expand the airport to change the situation and make the atmosphere more conducive.
How Militants Paralyzed Bayelsa's Economy (Nigerian Tribune)
Although the constancy of hostage taking in the oil-rich Niger Delta region has nose-dived in recent times, Soji Ajibola examines its impact on the socio-economic development of Bayelsa State, which has struggled tenaciously to end the scourge in its areas of jurisdiction.Created in 1996, Bayelsa State remains one of the underdeveloped states in the country, no thanks to hostage takings and other related vices perpetrated by the suspected militant youths under the excuse of fighting for their legitimate rights. Multi-national oil companies operating in the state are on the verge of relocating to neighbouring states as a result of what they described as insecurity to lives and property.
Successive administrations in the state had tried to put a stop to what the vice-president, the then the governor of the state, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, described as “criminal act”, blaming some traditional rulers in the state of aiding and abetting the committal of these crimes. This development has led to the abandonment of most of the on-going developmental projects in the state. Besides, millions of naira are also being deducted from the monthly allocation of the state as debts incurred as a result of ransom paid on hostage taking in the state.
Also, the ongoing dualisation of the East-West Road has been temporarily stopped as a result of threats to lives and property by one of the major contractors handling the project. The development was confirmed by the outgone president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, during the ground-breaking of the Brass Liquified Natural Gas in Twon Brass. One of the contractors wrote to the president of his intention to pull out of the project because of threats to the company’s property and lives of its workers, especially foreigners.
As if this was not enough, the monthly allocation of the state for the month of June 2007 dropped sharply to N4billion and this may affect the continuation of some of the projects embarked upon by the former administration in the state. This development has forced the present administration to cut down its expenses. To redeem the image of the state, Governor Timipre Sylva, after being welcomed into the state by the militants with the kidnapping of nine oil workers at the platform of the National Agip Oil Company, took the responsibility upon himself to defy every odd to visit the militants in their den.
Sylva left the state capital with some top government functionaries and headed for Ogboinbiri in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of the state to engage the militants in what could be best described as meaningful discussion. The visit eventually paid off as the governor was not only recognised and accorded due respect by the militants, but the captives were also released without payment of any ransom. The governor, who said he identified with the plight of the militants, said before any discussion could take place, the hostages must be released and they obliged his request, after which they were told to be civil in their approach to issues, most especially issues relating to the operations of the oil companies in the region. After the discussion, the governor returned to the state around 12 midnight with the hostages.
The people of the state actually heaved a sigh of relief with the visit of the governor to the area. But, then, this was short-lived as militants struck again on what they described as “reprisal attack” in protest against the killing of their colleagues by the government’s task force set up to dislodge them and end militancy in the region. The militants took over the Agip flow station and forced the stoppage of the oil exploration.
This development led to the state losing millions of dollars. Apart from this, nine militants were felled by the soldiers’ bullets. Although some soldiers were said to have been wounded, the casualties’ rate was more on the part of the militants than the security forces. The governor was disturbed on hearing the news and decided to engage in meaningful talks with all the stakeholders in the state so as to find lasting solutions to the militants’ attacks on the oil installation, having known the danger it portends for the socio-economic development of the state.
Most of the attacks were hinged on the call for the release of the self-styled leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, Alhaji Mujaheed Asari-Dokubo. But the surprising aspect was that barely a few days after Asari was released on bail by the Federal High Court, Abuja, the militants struck again, leaving 12 of his (Asari’s) members dead. Many people, including indigenes and non-indigenes of the state, fled the area as a result of insecurity. Also, the staff of NAOC stopped exploration activities.
However, the governor, while receiving Asari, allayed the fear of the people over the development, saying that the military was now fully in charge of the flow station while exploration activities were expected to resume any moment from now.
End to hostage taking, in the governor’s opinion, is the responsibility of all and sundry, including elders from the region. This challenge prompted Asari to volunteer to fight hostage taking to a standstill in the state. “Ijaw people are not known for criminality and the struggle has nothing to do with hostage taking and related vices”, he told the governor.
Although the multi-national oil companies operating in the region are largely said to be insensitive to the plight of the people, that does not justify the involvement of youths in the area in criminal activities. Asari said that there are other civil ways to make their demands known not only to Nigerians but also to the outside world. Asari has begun consultations with various interest groups in the region with the aim of finding lasting solutions to the social menace (particularly hostage taking) in the region. Many youths, according to him, are jobless, that is why they take to crime.
On his part, he said that he has established a skill acquisition centre in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. This, according to him, would go a long way in addressing the problem of hostage taking in the region if other state governments established similar centres to train their jobless youths in various vocations.
In any case, the state governments and the respective oil companies are part of the problems. Many top government functionaries are said to be serving as intermediaries between the government and the militants ostensibly because of what they tend to gain from the ransom paid to the militants before the release of hostages in their custody. It is wrong, according to Asari-Dokubo, for both the government and the affected oil companies to pay ransom before securing the release of the expatriates.
Asari stated that shortly after his release, some suspected militant youths went after the staff of Schlumberger and demanded for N100million before they could be released. The company said they could only pay N24million and the militants refused. "Even though some of the militant youths have been threatening to kill me because of my uncompromising stand on the issue of ransom, the more I hear of this death threat, the more I become annoyed. When I was informed of these militants' demand for the N24m ransom, I told them that if truly these people are held hostage because of my incarceration, now that I have been released, these people should also be released.
"I told the company not to pay them more than N24million and this is what they were given. Even though the said amount has been paid, the approach is wrong. The act must be discouraged. Bayelsa is the only state that we, Ijaws, can call our own and if we pursue all the foreigners away from our land, then, how can we be talking of development?" That indeed is food for thought for wayward “militants”, who have criminalised the genuine struggle for the development of the Niger Delta region.
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