Detained Niger Delta warlord Mujahid Dokubo Asari on Wednesday demanded the immediate release of a German oil worker taken prisoner last week by militants, an associate said in a statement.
Didone Shephard, an employee of oil service firm Bilfinger and Berger, was kidnapped along with his driver in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt last Thursday and taken to an unknown location.
A previously unknown Movement for the Niger Delta People (MONDP), which claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, said it was to demand the release of Asari and former Bayelsa state governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who are on trial in Abuja for alleged treason and corruption.
”Asari wishes to appeal to the kidnappers to release unconditionally their hostage as he has no hand in his travails,” Allen Onyema said in a statement.
He said that although Asari appreciated the concern of the militants for his plight, the detained warlord would prefer a peaceful means to resolve the crisis.
Asari was arrested in September 2005 and charged with ”treasonable felony” after he threatened to relaunch his armed campaign for an independent republic for his 12-million-strong ethnic Ijaws in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
He has remained in jail since then because the trial has yet to make appreciable progress.
The past seven months have seen a wave of kidnappings and attacks on oil facilities and personnel by separatist agitators in the Niger Delta, home to Nigeria’s multibillion-dollar oil and gas wealth.
On Friday, three Filipinos working on a multibillion-dollar liquefied gas project were abducted from Bonny Island, near Port Harcourt. Their whereabouts were still unknown and no claim has been made concerning them. — AFP
