The six foreign oil workers set free by their captors in the restive Niger-Delta yesterday left Nigeria for their respective home countries.
A Rivers State government aircraft, Embraer-100 flew the expatriates from Port Harcourt, to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, where they boarded flights out of the country yesterday morning.
They were accompanied to Lagos by a delegation of Rivers State government officials led by the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Odien Ajumogobia, who handed them over to officials of their various embassies on hand to receive them at the airport.
The workers � American Royce Parfait, Irishman Bryan Fogerty, Tomasz Andralojac from Poland, Britons John Guyan and Ian Rawlings and German Gerhard Czech were released at 10.20p.m. Wednesday after two weeks in captivity of separatist militants.
They had spent the night at Rivers State Government House, where Governor Peter Odili personally released them, while appealing to the insurgents to refrain from further kidnappings.
His charge was echoed by his Justice Commissioner, Ajumogobia, who condemned the incessant abduction of oil workers, saying it had grossly undermined the interest of the people of the region.
Ajumogobia, while handing over the six hostages kidnapped 10 days ago to the ambassadors of the United States and the United Kingdom in Lagos said no ransom was paid for their release.
While noting that no group had claimed responsibility for the nerve-racking act, the commissioner said the desires and agitation of the Niger-Delta people could not be met through incessant kidnappings of innocent oil workers.
He, however, said security agencies in the state had been working round the clock to unmask the kidnappers.
�Hostage taking is no longer serving the interest of the Niger-Delta neither does it satisfy their yearnings. We condemn it. It has embarrassed us in the eyes of US, UK and Ireland,� he said.