US professor shot in Niger Delta 

Delta militants have carried out a series of attacks and abductions
Unknown gunmen on motorcycles shot and wounded an American professor and a security guard in Nigeria's oil city, Port Harcourt officials say.
The American had arrived in Port Harcourt to attend an awards ceremony at a local newspaper office.

In another oil city, Yenagoa, the mother of a local state legislator was kidnapped on Tuesday night and a Nigerian oil worker shot dead.

The oil worker was shot dead in his home, also in Rivers State, say police.

Details of the shooting are still quite patchy, spokesperson Irejua Barasua told the BBC.

The US embassy in Abuja says it is aware of the shooting.

 

Ibiba Donpedro, the journalist for whom the ceremony had been organized, said the gunmen arrived at the newspaper office on at least two motorcycles.

"The next thing, we heard shots all over. Young men came in, shot the (professor) on the hand, ransacked the offices, shot up the windows, shot the security guy on the leg, and left," she said.

"They were saying, 'Where's the white man? Where's the money from the bank?'" she says.

She could not say whether the attack, in which the office was destroyed and two laptops were stolen, was a simple armed robbery or linked to the paper's recent investigation of alleged links between local politicians and criminal gangs.

The gunmen who kidnapped the mother of the Bayelsa State local assembly speaker in Yenagoa arrived in two boats on Tuesday night, a local vigilante group leader said.

The kidnapping was the third attack on officials - or those close to them - this week in the volatile oil-rich Niger Delta.

A politician from neighbouring Delta state was found dead on Monday.

On the same day, gunmen in Port Harcourt stormed the house of a newly appointed energy official and killed two family members.

More than 150 foreigners - mostly oil workers - and many Nigerians have been kidnapped in the region so far this year.

The hostages are usually released unharmed after ransom payments that are always denied by the Nigerian authorities and the oil companies concerned.

Despite being Africa's top oil producer and the sixth largest exporter crude to the US, the Niger Delta remains heavily impoverished.

Attacks on oil installations have cut Nigeria's oil daily production by about 25%, helping to drive up world oil prices.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6916080.stm

Another unsavoury addition to an already battered image

That US Professor has a very serious problem. Both he and the local newspaper that have him an award should be investigated. I'm sure he came to the Niger-Delta to get kidnapped. Thank God he was shot instead.

It is not only Niger-Delta he will come to receive award. He will soon go to Iraq to recieve praise.

People are abandoning their means of livelihood and running away from the Niger-Delta, one many is abandoning his own livelihood and coming to the Niger-Delta. Na God punish am.

I wonder where these criminals draw the line

denex:

That US Professor has a very serious problem. Both he and the local newspaper that have him an award should be investigated. I'm sure he came to the Niger-Delta to get kidnapped. Thank God he was shot instead.

It is not only Niger-Delta he will come to receive award. He will soon go to Iraq to recieve praise.

People are abandoning their means of livelihood and running away from the Niger-Delta, one many is abandoning his own livelihood and coming to the Niger-Delta. Na God punish am.

Sometimes i just dont get u! what is this supposed to mean

Like Simon Kolawole of the Thisday Newpaper said There should a Marshall Plan lie intervention in the Niger-Delta region, which i believe will make criminality in the region unattractive.

Sad a life was lost.