Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday said he was seeking permanent solutions to hostage-taking in the restive Niger Delta and denounced kidnaps as “criminality” that must not be allowed to go on.
“Hostage-taking is not [due to] marginalisation, it is not lack of opportunity to air their views. It is simply criminality,” Obasanjo told a presidential forum for officials and residents from the country’s oil-producing region.
He made the statement hours after an armed movement released an Italian hostage, but kept two other Italians and a Lebanese national, while five Chinese oil workers were separately freed by unidentified kidnappers.
“We have used carrots, we have used kid gloves, but we cannot continue indefinitely,” Obasanjo told participants at the quarterly forum on the socio-economic development of the region.
He sought concrete solutions to the Niger Delta problems.
“I do hope [that] as we make contributions, particularly today, you will touch on what we should do about criminality because it is not agitation that is making people hostages … We have to come to terms with how to handle this situation”, Obasanjo said.
“It is costing us dearly and we have realised that anybody who inadvertently or advertently supports the act of criminality is also an accomplice and he should be treated as a criminal,” he added.
The government early this month said it lost about 570 billion naira ($4,4-billion) in revenue last year due to falling oil production caused by unrest in the Niger Delta.
“The loss was due principally to social disruptions in the Niger Delta, which continued until the end of fiscal year 2006,” Finance Minister Nenadi Usman said.
Last year, at least 37 Nigerian troops and dozens of Nigerian oil workers were killed by the militants, while more than 60 foreigners, mostly oil workers, were kidnapped and later released.
Oil accounts for more than 95% of the foreign-exchange earnings of Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer.
Obasanjo, who is expected to step down from office in May after handing over to an elected successor, told the forum on Thursday that the campaign against acts of criminality such as that in Niger Delta should not end with his administration.
He urged any incoming government after his to continue the fight against hostage-taking. — AFP