A manhunt for militants in the Niger Delta is soon to be launched by the police in the six states that make up the oil-rich but troubled region.
A directive to fish out the militants was said to have been handed out on Sunday to the six commissioners of police in the affected states by the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero.
The states are Delta; Akwa Ibom; Rivers; Edo; Bayelsa; and Cross River.
Our correspondent learnt that Ehindero gave the directive following the rising spate of bomb explosions in the area.
Militant groups, especially the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, have claimed responsility for the explosions in the region.
The militants, who had laid emphasis on hostage takings, said on Sunday that one of the four foreign oil workers in their custody had taken ill.
Ehindero was said to have told the CPs that the Federal Government was disturbed because the bombings in the Niger Delta were sending wrong signals to the international community and creating fresh tension in the oil industry.
The IG, according to our source, advised the CPs to re-appraise their operations, with a view to ensuring that normalcy returned to the area.
A source in Asaba, Delta State, who disclosed this to our correspondent, said the IG ordered that a stop-and-search system should be put in place.
The source said, �The IG has ordered the commissioners of police in the Niger Delta to intensify stop-and-search in order to recover arms and explosives from circulation in the region.
�The CPs have been told to ensure that their personnel de-emphasise the practice of checking document of vehicles at checkpoints.�
The Public Relations Officer in the Delta State Police Command, Miss Olabisi Okuwobi, also confirmed the directive.
She told our correspondent that her boss, Mr. Udom Ekpoudom, had already ordered officers and men in the command to search all the nooks and crannies of the state in compliance with Ehindero�s directive.
Okuwobi said the practice of checking vehicle particulars along major roads had given way to serious search and recovery of arms and explosives.
Bomb explosions recently rocked Bayelsa, Edo, Delta and Rivers states, resulting in fresh apprehension, especially in the oil industry in the region.
The latest incidents occurred in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and Warri, Delta State.
In the Port Harcourt incidents, a bomb exploded at the residential quarters of Shell Petroleum Development Company while another occurred near the headquarters of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company.
The last one happened near the Presidential Lodge on Saturday.
Also, bombs exploded near the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company on Saturday, destroying two pipelines between the WRPC and Warri Jetty of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
On Monday, the MEND told the Agence France Presse that one of the hostages in its custody had been ill but had received medical treatment.
The sick hostage, Roberto Dieghi, a 64-year-old Italian, was kidnapped along with fellow Italians-Francesco Arena and Cosma Russo and a Lebanese, Imad Saliba � when the MEND attacked an oil installation owned by Agip in Brass, Bayelsa State on December 7.
The Italian daily, Corriere della Sera reported on its website that the MEND had requested a doctor to tend to one of the oil workers, without naming him, because he was �seriously ill�.
�One of the Italian hostages is seriously ill and we are giving permission to a doctor from the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders to come and see him,� the paper quoted the MEND as saying in an e-mail late on Sunday.
The message was signed by a certain Jomo Gbomo.
Since kidnapping the four, the MEND had released their photographs to the media and stepped up attacks on Agip and Shell facilities in Rivers and Bayelsa States.
The movement stated that it would not accept a ransom to free the four.
But instead the group demanded freedom for the former Bayelsa State Governor, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, Alhaji Mujaheedeen Asari-Dokubo, and other detainees from the Niger Delta.