Army says 63 arrested over kidnappings

The military said it smoked out the gang in an operation that lasted eight hours when its troops encircled a camp in southern Nigeria’s main oil producing region on Friday.

The precise number of arrests emerged when the gang was paraded before the media at an airforce base in the oil hub of Port Harcourt, said spokesman for a special unit deployed in the Niger Delta, Timothy Antigha, who earlier spoke of more than 50 arrests.

The gang leader and 62 others were rounded up after special military forces raided a camp in oil-rich Rivers state in southern Nigeria, he said.

He said the gang was responsible for the kidnapping of 19 oil workers, including several foreigners, in recent weeks.

“They were the group that abducted the Exxon Mobil workers and the Afren group workers and were responsible for other previous kidnappings and robberies in the past,” said Antigha. A group of workers for construction firm Julius Berger were also rescued from the gang.

The military had in an operation on Wednesday night freed the 19 hostages from the creeks of the Niger Delta region, the heart of one of the world’s largest oil industries. The victims included American, Canadian, French, Indonesian and Nigerian nationals.

The gang was captured from Bokokiri in Degema local government area of Rivers state during a daytime operation on Friday, a senior military official told AFP.

“We had surrounded the whole place…so they had to surrender. They were forced to surrender because of fire power,” said the official who took part in the raid.

“They didn’t deny any of the crimes and said they are sorry for what they did,” the source told AFP.

In total, two Americans, two French, two Indonesians, a Canadian and 12 Nigerians were kidnapped in recent weeks.

The main Nigerian militant group MEND had on Friday threatened more kidnappings of oil workers after the military rescued the 19 hostages earlier.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) had claimed responsibility for 14 of the hostages. The relationship between MEND and the arrested gang could not be immediately established.

MEND also claimed in a statement on Friday that its fighters had ambushed a convoy of Nigerian army gunboats and killed a number of soldiers, but the military spokesman said he was not aware of such an attack.

Over 30 rifles, some 10,000 rounds of ammunition and 12 machine guns were recovered during Friday’s raid on the camp the military said was headed by one Obese Kuna.

Laptop computers, radio communication equipment, assorted military uniforms and an array of mobile phones and sim cards were also recovered.

The militants — most of them aged in their 20s — were being handed over to the police on Saturday.

Police spokesman for Rivers state, Akin Fakorede, said investigations would begin immediately after the handover and charges likely to be laid included kidnapping and robbery.

Recent attacks on oil installations in the turbulent Niger Delta had signaled a new round of abductions in the region after an amnesty programme last year.

The amnesty was credited with greatly reducing unrest in the region and oil production has rebounded to an estimated 2.2 million barrels per day but there has been a new round of attacks in recent months.

The attacks come ahead of crunch elections set for early next year. President Goodluck Jonathan, who is running in the elections, is from the Niger Delta and faces pressure to resolve the situation in the region.

Many observers say the amnesty has failed to address underlying issues of poverty and unemployment in the Niger Delta. Militant leaders given stipends in exchange for turning in their weapons would eventually be replaced by others, they warned.

MEND, which claims to be fighting for a fairer distribution of oil revenue, has also been seen as an umbrella organisation for criminal gangs. It is believed to have splintered, particularly over the amnesty.