Nigerian kidnappers free journalists held for a week.
By Joel Olatunde Agoi (AFP) – Nigerian gunmen who kidnapped four journalists last week in the country’s oil-rich south freed them on Sunday without a ransom being paid, the head of the reporters’ union and police said.
The July 11 abduction of the newsmen, the second this year, sparked outrage in Africa’s most populous country of 150 million people.
“They put a call through to us saying that they have been released unconditionally,” said Nigerian Union of Journalists head Usman Leman.
Police met up with the journalists after their release, Leman said, and they were making their way out of a remote area in Abia State.
Abia State police spokesman Ali Okechukwu confirmed the release.
“The journalists have been released. They are with us right now at the police headquarters in Umuahia, hale and hearty,” he told AFP.
Okechukwu refused to give details of how the newsmen were freed after seven days in captivity, saying the head of the country’s police Ogbonna Onovo would address the issue later on Sunday.
A state government official, who asked not to be named, told AFP the journalists were dropped off in a forest by their captors.
“We picked them up at a location in a forest in a remote area of the state. They were not hurt,” the official said.
A police special task force had combed the forests and bushes of Abia State for days in search of the journalists who were abducted last Sunday while returning from a conference in nearby Akwa Ibom State.
The journalists are Abdulwahab Oba, NUJ chairman in Lagos, Sylva Okereke, the union’s assistant secretary, Adolphus Okonkwo, a regional secretary of the union and Shola Oyeyipo, a Lagos-based reporter.
The kidnappers initially demanded a ransom of 250 million naira (1.6 million dollars, 1.3 million euros) before the journalists could be released, but they later reduced it to 30 million naira.
Okechukwu said no ransom was paid.
Information Minister Dora Akunyili welcomed the release and told the state-run News Agency of Nigeria that Nigerians should stand up against kidnappers by refusing to pay ransom money.
Kidnappings occur frequently in Nigeria’s south, but oil workers have traditionally been the victims.
The abduction of the journalists illustrated a widening of the target profiles in recent months.
Officials and media rights groups, including global organisation Reporters Without Borders, also called for their immediate release.
The kidnappings were the second involving journalists in the volatile region this year.
In March, three M-Net Supersport television crew members — a South African and two Nigerians — were seized in Imo state, which neighbours the oil hub of Rivers State. They were freed about a week later.
While many of the kidnappings of oil workers have been claimed by militants who say they are seeking a fairer distribution of oil revenues, other abductions have been carried out to collect cash through ransom payments.
The independent ThisDay newspaper condemned the rising spate of kidnappings in an editorial on Sunday.
“What Nigerians want is a concerted fight against forces behind this heinous crime. Government must shed its seeming indifference to what is clearly a national embarrassment,” it said.
The paper urged government to equip the police and create jobs for unemployed youths as part of measures to fight the scourge.
“The growing insecurity in the country should stop,” it added.
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Releated, previous post on this issue:
USAfrica’s Publisher, African journalists call for release of kidnapped Nigerian journalists
KIDNAPPED: African journalists call for release of Nigerian journalists
July 16, 2010: The Founder & Publisher of Houston-based USAfrica multimedia networks and USAfricaonline.com, Dr. Chido Nwangwu, has “called on Nigeria’s President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to quickly but carefully ensure the safety and release of these Nigerian journalists to their families. It is good for Nigeria’s democracy and reputation that this be seen and treated as both a domestic security and international profile issue. I believe the issue requires urgent but prudent action by the presidency especially regarding the responsibility of government for public safety.”
Chido, who grew up and worked in the same city of Aba in the 1980s as a very young staff of the Nigerian television and later as a print media journalist in Lagos (Nigeria), added: “It is such a terrible, shameful commentary on the state of things in our beloved but battered Aba, the Abia State and the condition of Nigeria’s law and order that writers and journalists are kidnapped. Therefore, the editors and reporters of USAfrica call on those who executed the scheme to kidnap our colleagues in the once great city of Aba, Abia State of Nigeria to release, without further delay, these hard-working journalists. They are Wahaab Oba (Chairman of NUJ Lagos State council), Adolphus Okonkwo (NUJ Secretary Zone G), Sylvester Okereke (NUJ Assistant Secretary Lagos State), Shola Oyeyipo (NUJ Lagos State Council) and their driver Mr. Azeez Yekini. They have been held since July 11, 2010, while on assignment. Other journalists fled to safety when the attack occurred.”
Chido Nwangwu, recipient of the Washington Dc-based National Immigration Forum’s honors in the 1990s for using the multimedia platforms of USAfrica and media to fight authoritarianism and bigotry in Africa, concluded that: “It is unacceptable that journalists, as articulators and defenders of the freedoms of communities, cannot go about their legitimate business without fear of losing their own basic freedom to go out and simply report.”
News@USAfricaonline.com and Chido@USAfricaonline.com Phone: 1-713-270-5500. wireless: 832-45-CHIDO (24436).
Nigerian kidnappers free journalists held for a week.
