Robbers shot dead a Nigerian policeman in a raid on a United States-owned oil services company in the restive southern city of Port Harcourt on Friday, police said.
Gunmen attacked police guarding the Willbros depot in Choba on the outskirts of the city and killed one officer, said Rivers State police commissioner Samuel Adetuyi.
”There was a robbery there. One policeman was killed, but I haven’t got any more information yet,” he said.
Oil industry security sources said that a large sum of money was taken in the raid. Adetuyi could not immediately confirm this.
The incident comes shortly after a militant group warned foreign firms to leave the area or face attack.
Willbros provides engineering services to the international oil majors operating in the Niger Delta, home to Africa’s biggest oil industry and a flashpoint for political and criminal violence.
Its base in Choba is in an area notorious for armed robbery and is on a river running through territory known as a stronghold of the illegal Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF).
Earlier, the NDPVF had warned foreign firms that they would not be spared in a renewed conflict with the Nigerian state.
Angered by the arrest on Tuesday of its leader Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo Asari, the separatist militia gave companies 48 hours to quit the delta, warning that failure to comply will ”result in death, grave sabotage and every other thinkable vice.”
It was not clear, however, whether the Willbros raid was linked to the guerrillas’ campaign or a simple criminal act. – Sapa-AFP