Gunmen in oil-rich southern Nigeria have seized the 70-year-old mother of a federal lawmaker, family and police sources said on Saturday.
“It is true. I have received the news, but the kidnappers are yet to make any contact with us,” said Henry Seriake Dickson, a member of the House of Representatives and son of the woman.
Iniobong Ekaette, police spokesman for Bayelsa state, also confirmed the incident.
The lawmaker’s mother, Goldcoast Dickson, was seized from her house in the riverine community of Toru-Orua in Sagbama municipal area at about 1.30 am (0030 GMT) on Friday by gunmen who came in a boat.
The seizure of Dickson is the first time the parent of a federal Nigerian lawmaker has been seized. Several family members of state lawmakers have previously been targeted.
In recent cases, the mother of Delight Igali, a member of the Bayelsa House of Assembly, was taken hostage from her village in southern Ijaw council area on October 13.
Three days earlier, 82-year-old Jeffrey Komonibo, father of another Bayelsa lawmaker, was similarly taken from his house in the state.
In neighbouring Rivers state, Kara Nwile, the father of Charles Befii Nwile, the deputy speaker of the House of Assembly, was kidnapped on October 2.
The hostages were released after some days. Their relations denied payment of ransom to secure their release.
In the eighteen months leading up to June 2007, militant and criminal gangs in the Niger Delta concentrated on kidnapping foreigners, mostly oil workers, seizing some 200 of them in that period.
As companies stepped up security measures expatriates became harder to get.
Starting in July, the gangs mostly switched to targeting the elderly parents and children of prominent Nigerians in the region, whilst continuing to seize foreigners when they could.
The unrest in the Niger Delta has reduced exports of Nigeria’s 2.6 million barrels of crude per day at peak production by a quarter in the past 18 months