10 kidnapped on Nigeria oil exploration mission
KANO: Gunmen believed to be Boko Haram Islamists have kidnapped 10 members of an oil exploration team in northeast Nigeria, colleagues and the state-run oil firm said on Wednesday.
“About 10 staff from the survey and geological department of the University of Maiduguri were abducted on Tuesday,” said Ndu Ughamadu of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
Ughamadu said the NNPC had contracted the team to carry out research work on oil exploration activities taking place in the Lake Chad basin.
“They were kidnapped around Jibi village in Borno state after a gun duel between the security agents accompanying them and suspected Boko Haram fighters,” he said.
Efforts were under way to track down the captors before a possible rescue operation. Jibi village is in the Magumeri area of Borno, northwest of the state capital, Maiduguri.
University of Maiduguri spokesman Danjuma Gambo confirmed the abduction and said the institution was awaiting further details from security operatives.
“There is no denying the fact that this incident happened, involving our staff, NNPC workers and security escorts from the military and the (civilian militia),” he added.
“Our staff who were recruited as consultants were on the team that was ambushed.”
The oil prospecting team had been working in the Magumeri area of Borno state for the last month, according to another member of staff, who asked not to be identified.
“It was clear Boko Haram studied their movements before attacking them,” he said.
Oil production has been concentrated in Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta region since it was first found in commercial quantities in 1956.
But repeated attacks by militants wanting a fairer share of profits for local people has forced the government to look elsewhere.
Exploration has been started in inland basins rang- ing from central Benue state to Boko Haram’s heartland in northeast. But insecurity caused by the jihadists’ insurgency over the last eight years has disrupted work, with the latest kidnapping underlining the continued threat.
Boko Haram has used kidnapping as a weapon of war in the conflict. Thousands of women and girls have been seized while men and boys have been made to fight in the Islamist ranks.
Recent kidnappings of more high-profile targets appear to have a financial motivation, possibly to raise ransom money for the cash-strapped group.
On June 20, armed gunmen abducted 10 women after an attack on a convoy of vehicles travelling towards the town of Damboa from Maiduguri.
In May, Britain and the United States updated security advice for their nationals in northeast Nigeria, warning that Boko Haram was “actively planning” to kidnap foreign workers. DOHA: Qatar said on Wednesday that a new blacklist released by Saudi Arabia and its allies came as a “disappointing surprise” in a diplomatic crisis that has split the Gulf.
The four Arab governments named 18 organisations and individuals on Tuesday that they accused of links with Islamist extremism and Qatar.
The move by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain came despite mounting international pressure to compromise in their weeks-old boycott of their fellow US ally.
Qatari government communications director Sheikh Saif bin Ahmed Al-thani official said the blacklist had no basis in fact and was aimed at stripping the emirate of its sovereignty.
“It comes as a disappointing surprise that the blockading countries are still pursuing this story as part of their smear campaign against Qatar,” he said in a statement.
“This latest list provides further evidence that the blockading countries are not committed to the fight against terrorism.
“All individuals with links to terrorism in Qatar have been prosecuted. We encourage the blockading countries to spend less time on drafting these fabricated lists and more time on implementing measures to counter the threat of extremism in their own countries.”
The four governments issued a previous blacklist of 59 individuals and 12 groups last month. Sheikh Saif said it had been “widely rejected by the international community”.
Saudi Arabia and its allies have been boycotting Qatar since June 5 in the region’s worst diplomatic crisis in years.
They sealed the emirate’s only land border, ordered its citizens to leave and closed their airspace and waters to Qatari flights and shipping.
They demanded that Qatar break its longstanding ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, blacklisted as a “terror group” by the four governments although not by the international community.
They also demanded that it close broadcasting giant Aljazeera and a Turkish military base, and fall in line with Saudiled policy in the region, particularly towards Iran.
Qatar has dismissed the demands as a violation of its sovereignty and has received significant support from its ally Turkey. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who last week spent four days in the region trying to broker a settlement of the crisis, has voiced satisfaction with Qatar’s efforts to address any suspicion of terror funding.