Barely one week after the appointment of Elder Godsday Orubebe as the new Minister of 

the Niger Delta ministry by Acting Governor Goodluck Jonathan, kidnappers seem to have 

gone berserk kidnapping at least six oil workers yesterday Friday, April 9  in Port 

Harcourt, capital of Rivers state, south-south Nigeria.  

     The kidnapped expatriates included Miland (a Lebanese), Farid, Remond and Right

 all Syrian nationals. The four men work with Marco Engineering company. Later the same

 day, another Syrian, Chadi Hossand and Germani Ghassan of Lebanon working with a construction

 company, Marianco were also kidnapped at Ogoni axis, home town of the late cerebral activist, 

Ken Saro Wiwa. Wiwa, a pioneer President of the Movement for the Survival of ogoni People, 

MOSOP was killed by hanging with eight others in 1994 by Nigeria’s military dictatorship

under late general

 Sani Abacha for “inciting his native people against the state”.

        The four kidnappers decked in army uniforms with sophisticated weapons stormed the house

 of a senior local government staff in the government reserve area, GRA, and carted away the sum

 of N3.7 million.  But mother luck ran out of the kidnappers described by eye witnesses as

 “common criminals” when they were encountered by the Rivers state anti-crime patrol team. 

In a shoot-out that ensued, two of the kidnappers were killed while a Police Sergeant also 

lost his life. A Camry car, AK-47 rifles with magazines and the N3.7 million were recovered

 from them.

       Last month, the state Commissioner of Police, Suleiman Abba revealed to Journalists 

in a Press conference that his men were all out to fish out criminals who have been terrorizing

 the oil-rich city of Port Harcourt over the years. Some Mobile Police uniforms, berets and 

weapons were recovered from a certain kingpin of a notorious criminal gang while the suspect 

is already cooling off in detention awaiting a possible prosecution.

       Nigeria’s Niger Delta region with about 20 million people is very rich in oil and gas.

 It has been the hottest flashpoint in the country following agitations by the citizens of 

the area for a better condition of life by the federal government. The agitation has bred

 bloody clashes between militants under the aegis of Movement for the Emancipation of the 

Niger Delta, MEND and the government troops.   

 Only last month, two bombs exploded at the Government House annex in Warri, Delta state at 

the occasion of post-amnesty program organized by the Vanguard Group company. Three people 

were reported to have died while scores of others sustained injuries.