Bogus cop kidnaps MP's wife
2008-03-19 10:22
Port Harcourt - Gunmen posing as police officers kidnapped the wife of a Nigerian politician from a busy street in the country's troubled oil-rich south, said a state police spokeswoman on Wednesday.
Irejua Barasua from Rivers state said the gunmen initially pretended to arrest Dorothy Otele, wife of Bayelsa state legislator Franklin Otele, and then fired gunshots in the air to cover their escape when their identity was challenged.
Otele had received a demand for ransom, the spokesperson said. Otele had received threats in the past to kidnap his wife and daughter.
Kidnapping was increasingly common in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta region, although gangs had shifted their focus from wealthy foreign oil workers to local politicians and businessmen after multinationals evacuated non-essential staff and dependents.
Kidnapping oil workers originally began as a protest against pollution and abuse by oil companies, but criminal gangs quickly turned it into a profit-making activity and any pretence of political protest had been lost.
Hostages were rarely harmed, although a few had died during shoot-outs with security forces or from illness. Kidnapping women and children was becoming increasingly common.
Nigeria was Africa's largest oil exporter and the fifth-largest supplier of crude to the United States, but also one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Many criminal gangs had links to the security forces or government officials who used them to rig elections.
- AP