Nigerian gunmen have demanded a ransom of 1.2 million pounds for the release of three Britons and a Colombian abducted this week, the police said Friday.
“The kidnappers have asked for payment of 300 million naira before the men can be released,” Rivers State police spokeswoman Rita Abbey told AFP.
She said that the kidnappers made the demand through a phone call to a relation of one of the kidnapped foreigners.
The police in the state have promised a reward of eight thousand pounds for any information that can lead to the release of the hostages, she added.
“The Rivers State police command has promised a reward of two million naira to anybody who can provide any information that can lead to the release of these foreigners,” Abbey said.
The four — contract workers for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell — were abducted on Tuesday between the oil city of Port Harcourt and nearby Aba in Abia State.
The gunmen shot dead the foreigners’ police escort and wounded their driver during the attack.
Police spokesman in Abia State Ali Okechukwu also told AFP that the police command in the state has not yet established contacts with either the abductors or the foreigners.
“We have no contacts yet with either the kidnappers or the foreigners. The state police commissioner, Jonathan Johnson, has made a passionate appeal to the abductors to release the foreigners unharmed in order not to jeopardise relations between their countries and Nigeria,” he told AFP.
“He appealed to them to free these hostages to save Nigeria from international condemnation,” added Okechukwu.
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell in Nigeria said that the four worked for Netco Diestman, a maintenance engineering firm specialising in operations and maintenance of oil and gas production plants.
The company has its Nigerian offices in Abuja and Port Harcourt.
They were on their way to Afam power plant located in the region.
The incident was the first major kidnapping in southern Nigeria since last July and follows a lull in the wake of a government amnesty which saw thousands of militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta lay down their arms.