The ever ending cat and mouse drama ended finaly!


Nigerian kidnappers free journalists held for a week AFP


LAGOS — 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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