Four More Oil Workers Abducted
Four more people have been abducted in the Niger Delta, authorities said on Monday, underscoring insecurity in Nigeria's oil-producing region hours after a 3-year-old British girl was freed by her kidnappers.
Margaret Hill was released on Sunday night after four days in the hands of unknown ransom seekers who snatched her from the car in which she was being driven to school on July 5 in Port Harcourt, the delta's main city.
On Monday, Britain's Foreign Office said a Briton was among two foreign workers kidnapped on Sunday night from a production barge near Calabar in Cross River state -- an area in the east of the southern delta that is usually relatively safe and peaceful. A Bulgarian foreign ministry official confirmed one of its nationals was the other worker kidnapped in the attack.
Oil major Royal Dutch Shell said one of its teams had been attacked in Rivers state in the delta on Saturday and two Nigerian workers had been taken hostage.
Shell spokesman Precious Okolobo said gunmen had attacked the workers while they were repairing the Soku-Buguma trunk line, an oil pipeline that had only just been repaired on July 2 after being sabotaged in 16 different places in 60 days.
Okolobo said the team attacked on Saturday had been repairing three new leaks. He said no output was affected because the pipeline had been sabotaged so many times that production had been diverted through another line.
Nigerian oil production is currently down by more than 20 percent because of militant attacks on oil facilities.
Supply disruptions in Nigeria, the world's eighth-biggest oil exporter, have pushed up world oil prices and on Monday analysts cited news of the new kidnappings as one of the factors in a price spike above $76 per barrel.
NEGLECT
Oil from the delta has enriched foreign oil firms and corrupt Nigerian governments for five decades but the region has been neglected to the point that there are few basic services.
This state of affairs breeds militancy and crime. Some armed groups attack the oil industry to press their demand for "resource control" or local power over oil revenues, but numerous criminal gangs have made hostage takings a business.
The main rebel group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said on Monday the abduction of the British toddler was unrelated to political violence and the struggle for resource control would continue.
"This criminal act against a minor was perpetrated by common thieves and even as they have released the child, I promise you their punishment is unspeakable," said the MEND spokesman, who uses the pseudonym Jomo Gbomo.
"This incident changes nothing amongst the groups truly agitating for resource control in the Niger Delta," he said.
Abductions of adult expatriates are so frequent in the Niger Delta that they rarely make headlines in Nigerian newspapers, but the kidnapping of Margaret Hill drew outrage from the government as well as from politically motivated armed groups.
About 200 foreigners have been snatched in the delta since the start of 2006. Most were released unharmed.
A small number of abductions in the Niger Delta are carried out by MEND and other rebel groups seeking to press their demand for resource control, but most are the work of ransom seekers.
Militants Set to Talk with President (Vanguard)
PRESIDENT Umaru Yar’Adua is to meet with Niger-Delta militants in Abuja soon over their demand for the creation of two more states - Oil Rivers and Toruebe for the Ijaws and an additional Local Government Area in Bayelsa State, as part of the conditions for peace to reign in the region.
It was learnt with authority yesterday that the demand for the creation of two more Ijaw states and one more Local Government in Bayelsa State to bring the present seven Local Governments to eight were made to the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan by leaders of the militant groups in the region when he visited them in the creek recently.
Dr. Jonathan reportedly told the militants that he, as Vice President, could not guarantee the creation of two more Ijaw states and a Local Government in Bayelsa, suggesting that it was his boss, President Umaru Yar’Adua that had the power to give a dependable answer.
“It was on this basis”, hinted our source, “that it was agreed that the militants would meet with President Umaru Yar’Adua.”
The date for the meeting could not be confirmed, yesterday, but Dr. Jonathan is facilitating the parley between Yar’Adua and the militants.
Asked if the militant leaders would attend the meeting with Yar’Adua personally, our source said some of them would be there while others would send their representatives.
Besides, Vanguard gathered that the militants agreed to cease hostilities for three months to give the Federal Government opportunity to address their demands, and not the earlier one month, which had already lapsed, that a faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) gave the government previously.
To ensure that all the militant groups in the region were carried along in the high-level parley with the government, the leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND), Niger-Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) boss, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari and others recently convened an enlarged meeting of Ijaw freedom fighters at Oporoza, the administrative headquarters of Gbaramatu kingdom to brief the entire Ijaw youths.
The meeting, held, last Thursday, was attended by Ijaw youth leaders from all over the country but it was not conclusive, as it was shifted to this weekend, to enable other representatives attend the meeting.
Lonestar Evacuates Workers (Guardian)
SIX days after five of its expatriate workers were abducted by unknown gunmen in Rivers State, an oil firm, Lonestar Drilling Company, has evacuated 120 of its employees from the Nembe area of Bayelsa State.
The oil firm's move followed fresh threats of attack from militants.
A source disclosed to The Guardian that the oil company received a fresh threat by militants demanding an unspecified amount of money from it.
The militants were reported to have threatened to attack the oil firm if it failed to provide the demanded sum of money.
Meanwhile, the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) has condemned the abduction of workers of Lonestar Drilling Company and reiterated that hostage-taking was not only sending negative signals to the outside world, but also having adverse effects on businesses in the Niger Delta.
With the whereabouts of the five expatiates who were abducted from Soku in Akuku-Toru Local Council Area of Rivers State still unknown, the management of the oil services company which drills for Shell Petroleum Development Company decided at the weekend to evacuate all its workers from Nembe.
The kidnapped Lonestar expatiates are messes Kiwis Brent Goddard and Bruce Klenner both from New Zealand; Jason Lane, Australia; George Saliba of Lebanon and Andreas Gambra from Venezuela.
Piqued by the persistent attacks on oil workers, the spokesperson of PETAN, Mr. Bank-Anthony Okorafor, warned that hostage-taking and kidnapping was having adverse effect on the oil service industry in the Niger Delta, particularly in Rivers State.
He said: "We believe the world has heard our message. We advise the hostage-takers to desist from this act which is turning our vibrant Rivers State into a ghost town with the consequence of companies relocating out of the state and the resultant loss of jobs, loss of revenue as well as inability to develop and sustain capacity and loss of entrepreneurial development."
Okorafor implored the militants to encourage the development of local entrepreneurs and send positive signals to the outside world that Rivers State is a good place to invest in and do business.
"The time is now for us to all come to the table for a more constructive dialogue that will see the transformation of our Niger Delta. Nigeria belongs to us all, enough is enough, let hostage-taking not be a brand name for us in the Niger Delta so that we don't have to live with it for the rest of our lives. We are a smart group of people. So, let us work toward that goal," he added.
Naked Man Causes Concern on Abuja Highway (Daily Trust)
A naked man was last Friday night seen crying for help at a lonely spot at Kugbo along the Abuja- Keffi highway. The man, whose identity could not be ascertained, appeared huge and was standing by the road side between Mogadishu barracks and Kugbo, in the Federal Capital Territory
The reporter observered the man waving at motorists to come to his rescue at 9.30pm, in a spot very close to where a civil servant was burnt inside his car last year. Drivers instead of waiting to help the man increased their speed and the driver of the bus that carried the reporter described the spot as a criminal's den.
"That is a bad spot where people's cars are snatched and robbed people are dumped," the driver said. He said any person who stops at that place would risk having his car snatched. Passengers in the bus were of different opinion of what must have happened to the man.While one of them said the man might have escaped from ritualists, another stated that he could have been a victim of car robbery, who might have disposed him of his car and clothes. One of the passengers reasoned that it would be good if the police take their check point to that spot instead of close to AYA in Asokoro.
"The police are aware of that spot and I wonder why somebody should build a structure close to the place and inside a bush," a female passenger said.
The reporter sent a text message to the police hotlines and the FCT police spokesperson, Nwoaha Uzoma said he passed through the place and did not see the man. He advised motorists to always report such incidents to the nearest police station for immediate action.
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