A militant group in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta said it kidnapped two German oil workers and four Nigerians on Wednesday to press for a series of social and economic demands.
Oil services company B&B said six of its staff, two Germans and four Nigerians, were abducted while travelling by boat from Delta State to Bayelsa State, where the ethnic Ijaw militant group is based.
“Six of our staff including two Germans and four Nigerians were kidnapped earlier today. We haven’t heard any word from them,” said Thomas Horbach, B&B project manager in the oil hub of Warri.
T.I.T. Manse, leader of the little-known Iduwini National Movement for Peace and Development, said the kidnappings were aimed at putting pressure on the local unit of Royal Dutch Shell. He said B&B was a Shell sub-contractor.
Conflicts between foreign oil companies and Nigerian ethnic militants are common in the Niger Delta, which pumps almost all of the OPEC member’s 2.3 million barrels per day.
Many residents of the impoverished wetlands believe they are being cheated out of the huge riches being extracted from their tribal lands. Militant groups often demand money and services from companies, under threat of violence.
The Iduwini are a clan within the Ijaw, the dominant ethnic group in the Niger Delta.
Manse, reached by satellite phone from the Amatu community along the Dodo River in Bayelsa State, said his movement was angry at Shell for failing to meet economic and social commitments it had made to the community.
He said these included employment, construction of school buildings and social development projects.
“The youths are now provoked ... A three-day ultimatum has been given to them. If the SPDC (the Nigerian unit of Shell) does not comply immediately, we are going to take over all the oil installations that are around the area.”
Shell had no immediate comment on the kidnappings.
Last year, a group calling itself the Iduwini Youths kidnapped a Croatian and 15 Nigerian oil workers in a raid on a vessel operated by Seabulk, a U.S. subcontractor to Shell. They were all released.
The German ambassador to Nigeria, Dietmar Kreusel, said he was working to sort out the situation.
“We do not have a clear-cut statement telling us what they want us to do or what they hope to achieve. We don’t know what the demand is. We are trying to sort it out,” he said.
The threat of violence in the eastern side of the Niger Delta last year drove oil prices to a new record above $50 per barrel, while ethnic clashes between Ijaw and Itsekiri in 2003 forced multinationals to evacuate, closing 40 percent of Nigeria’s output.
