Secretary to the Delta State Government (SSG), Chief Ovie Omo-Agege, has relocated to Warri, following the abduction on Saturday night of seven foreign oil workers by some Niger-Delta militants. The decision to relocate to Warri, THISDAY gathered from an authoritative government source last night, “is to facilitate the speedy release of the hostages.”
The source also confirmed that “Government has already made very useful contacts, concerning the hostages; the relocation of the SSG is simply to consolidate this decisive step taken.”
He said the government could not, however, state if the reason for the abduction has any political motive, noting that what was of importance to the Ibori administration now “is securing the early release of hostages.”
The state commissioner for information, Dr Festus Okubo, had assured earlier that the government had already opened negotiations with the abductors of the oil workers, believed to be mostly Filipinos, because of its determination to ensure that none of them was harmed.
The seven hostages were reportedly taken from the ship that was conveying them at Okerenkoko, administrative headquarters of Warri South-West Local Government, by gunmen allegedly operating with a commercial vessel, which might have been seized for the purpose.
The dreaded Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) had, in a release sent through e-mail earlier in the week, threatened to take more hostages in Balyelsa State and other parts of the Niger-Delta because the Federal Government was allegedly treating some of its demands with levity.
It will be recalled that just last week, the Federal Council on Socio-Economic Development of the Coastal States of the Niger-Delta (COSEDECS) met at the presidential villa in Abuja to deliberate on burning issues in the economically strategic region of Nigeria , including the worrisome incidence of hostage taking.