Several weeks of seeming reprieve from the spate of hostage-taking by militants in the Niger-Delta suffered a major set-back yesterday, with the reported abduction of eight foreign workers from site at Agbarho, Ughelli North Local Government of Delta State. Also yesterday, a Dutch national and Chief Security Officer working with B&B, a subsidiary of Julius Berger Construction Company was kidnapped at their base in Abuloma, Rivers State while his abductors shattered doors and windows in the company with bullets.
The kidnapped men in Delta were working for, the SETRACO construction company presently undertaking the Warri-Port Harcourt expressway, the report said.
THISDAY gathered that four Indians and four Lebanese were seized by the unidentified gunmen and driven away from where they were working at Agbarho portion of the road. Nobody had claimed responsibility for the latest apparent case of hostage-taking in the region as at the time of filing this report yesterday evening.
The naval commander in Delta State , Navy Captain M. Ajibade, confirmed the incident to newsmen in Warri yesterday, saying security forces had information that some expatriate SETRACO workers had been kidnapped in the early hours of yesterday.
Ajibade noted that details of the attack and abduction were still sketchy, even as he said that the motive of the kidnapping was still mysterious.
However, THISDAY gathered from usually dependable sources that the militants operated rather swiftly and in commando-style, giving the security operatives in the area practically no room to respond adequately.
It further learnt that the militants, after seizing their targets, drove them away from the road construction site to Agbarho Waterside, that is, the creeks, where they apparently had their speed boats waiting.
The hostages were said to have been transferred into the vessels men armed to the teeth, which eventually disappeared with the captives into an unknown destination.
THISDAY also learnt that the gunmen then set ablaze the vehicle with which they had conveyed the kidnapped men to the place they birthed before vanishing into thin air.
The highway CETRACO is working, is a major project of the Federal Government of Nigeria in the Niger-Delta, described as the “ Niger-Delta Super Highway ” by some government functionaries, and is expected to link Delta, Cross River , Bayelsa and Rivers states, through Warri and Ughelli to Port-Harcourt.
Twenty-four Filipino hostages and their ship were last month released at the Warri Port to the Delta State Government after 24 days in captivity.
Governor James Ibori, while thanking President Olusegun Obasanjo for not adopting the military option to secure the release of the Filipinos, had expressed the hope then that such incidence would not occur again in Delta State.
The kidnap of the Dutch at about 7.07 am yesterday in Rivers is coming on the heels of a reported disruption of works at Daewoo camp where host community members alleged the companyrefused to engage them but chose to bring in foreigners to work even as cleaners.
An unnamed militant group had about four weeks ago threatened that they were going to shut downthe company as well as hit Mobil faclities since their interrupoted production was working against their agitation.
Confirming the kidnap, Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu said the Dutch was taken by a yet to be identified group but said efforts were on to unravel all facts sorruounding the incident.
It could be recalled that while releasing the last hostage who was an Italians, some militant groups had vowed to take more hostages as well as to change tactics by exploding more bombs in the region.
It is not however clear if the kidnap has anything to do with the alleged arrest of three boys said to be loyalists of Soboma George, the militant big wig whose arrest led to the burning of the State Criminal Investigations Department and the forceful freeing of Soboma and other detainees at the center