Gunmen abduct Italian worker in Ebonyi   
Written by DENNIS AGBO     
Wednesday, 08 April 2009 

[b]ABAKALIKI—AN  Italian expatriate engineer, simply identified as Joseph, working with Marlum Construction, a company that executes projects at the new Abakaliki capital development city was on Monday kidnapped to yet unknown destination.
Though the Ebonyi state Commissioner for Police, Kachi Udorji confirmed the incident, yesterday, he could not give further details, but the state Governor, Martin Elechi met the Italian Ambassador to Nigeria yesterday in Abuja, even though details of their discussion was not made know at press time.

Meanwhile, Vanguard gathered that a ransom of N150million had been demanded by the suspected kidnappers.

According to reports from the scene of the incident, the expatriate, Joseph was being conveyed to the construction site when the vehicle conveying him was intercepted along the pathway leading to the company’s yard, and was forced into the boot of the vehicle brought by the gunmen.

Almost immediately after forcing him into the boot, another vehicle conveying another staff of the firm with armed police escort arrived at the scene, at which point the vehicle commandeered by  the kidnapers zoomed off, but the occupants of the other vehicle did not know that their man, Joseph was in the boot of the car that just left.[/b]There has been an upsurge of kidnapping in the state, though this is first time an expatriate is kidnapped. It would be recalled that a pregnant female broadcaster was last year abducted and released after a ransom was paid.

The incident is coming barely one week after Governor Elechi laid the foundation stone of a new state secretariat complex at the new capital Ochoudo-city, a project estimated to cost over N11.5 billion.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/33099/45/

aswerigad, these foreign workers are stupid. why wont they just leave the niger delta area till the problems are resolved?