The following story is from the Houston Chronicle…..
A Baker Hughes employee from Central Texas was shot to death on his way to work Wednesday in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, a company spokesman said.
The motive for the shooting was unknown. Late in the day, Reuters news service reported a militant group responsible for past attacks on foreign oil workers in the African country denied responsibility.
The employee, Ricky Wiginton, 51, of Itasca, north of Waco, served as an operations manager for the company’s drilling fluids division.
Wiginton had been with Baker Hughes for four or five months, his sister-in-law Jo Tekell said, and he had been in the oil services industry for 25 years. “He enjoyed his work,” she said. “And he enjoyed being here in Itasca with his friends and family.”
Tekell said Wiginton came home every five weeks and was due home Saturday. She said Baker Hughes notified the family Wednesday morning.
Gene Shiels, a spokesman for the Houston-based oil-field services company, said Wiginton was shot in an automobile while on the way to work. His name was released once family and friends had been notified.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to them,” Shiels said.
The company will work with Nigerian authorities and is conducting its own investigation, he said.
Attackers on a motorcycle shot Wiginton, who was a passenger in the vehicle, Reuters news service said, citing Rivers State Police Commissioner Samuel Agbetuyi.
Shiels would not say if Baker Hughes had decided to pull its staff out of Port Harcourt to Lagos as a security precaution.
The death follows a series of raids against the oil industry in Nigeria, where militants seeking more control of the area’s oil resources have attacked oil facilities and kidnapped workers.
Shiels couldn’t say if the shooting may be related to unrest in the region caused by militants who threatened earlier this week to carry out attacks on the oil industry.
In an e-mail response to Reuters, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it was not involved in the shooting of Wiginton.