Again, a staff of an oil company, Mr. Goodday Joseph and a toddler, Tonye George were kidnapped in Port Harcourt and Okrika, at the weekend.
Meanwhile the whereabouts of Mrs. Fedelia Chioma, mother of the Leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Golden Ngozi Chioma, who was abducted on Friday from a primary school where she teaches in Port Harcourt, is yet to be located.
Joseph, in a distress text message sent to the Police spokesperson in the state, Mrs. Ireju Barasua, said he was abducted from his house at about 7pm on Friday by three gunmen, who were demanding for a N10 million ransom.
When The Guardian called the cell-phone number which Joseph used in sending the distress message, his abductors replied that an undisclosed individual who had scores to settle with the abducted oil worker was the one who commissioned them to take him hostage.
“He has problem with someone and it was the person that contacted us to kidnap him. We have done our job and we are demanding for N10million as ransom. That is what the person is asking for,” one of the hostage takers said on the phone.
George was snatched by unknown gunmen from his father’s house on Friday evening, while he was playing with some other children.
The child’s father, Daniel George, said the bandits have contacted him and are demanding N5m as ransom. The distressed father, who said he did not have such amount, has appealed to the bandits to unconditionally release the innocent child.
The Police said the whereabouts of the mother of Mrs Chioma remain unknown. The gunmen who dragged the woman into a waiting Lancer car, did not give any reason for their action.
Children and relations of politicians and oil workers have been targeted for kidnap by bandits who then demand for millions of Naira as ransom.