Gunmen killed three police escorts and abducted the director of a Nigerian oil company in southeastern Nigeria, the latest incident in the region, police said on Friday (November 25th).
Dressed in military uniforms, the assailants on Thursday ambushed and opened fire on the convoy of a senior oil official in the Rumuokoro area of Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State and oil capital of Nigeria. “Three police officers escorting the cadre were killed while the man was kidnapped and taken to an unknown locationregional police spokeswoman Grace Iringe-Koko told AFP.
Oil and gas resources
The gunmen, posing as a military patrol in a green car, signaled the convoy to stop before opening fire and killing the officers, she said. Police say the abducted man is the director of IGPES Group, a Nigerian oil and gas company based in Port Harcourt. An investigation is ongoing, added Grace Iringe-Koko. So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
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But kidnappings for ransom are commonplace in Africa’s most populous country. The criminals target both wealthy businessmen and poor farmers, victims of mass kidnappings in the North. The Niger Delta is home to oil and gas resources worth billions of dollars. But residents mostly live in poverty due to decades of pollution and neglect, corruption and a lack of redistribution.
Kidnappings, oil theft
In the 2000s, armed men abducted hundreds of oil company employees, including foreigners, to expose the unjust exploitation of resources. In 2009, government-backed amnesties helped reduce attacks, but sporadic incidents and large-scale oil theft persist in the region.
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Nigeria, an OPEC member and one of Africa’s largest crude producers, loses up to $2 billion annually due to widespread oil theft and siphoning of pipelines in the region.