The wife of a prominent Nigerian politician and oil businessman, who was abducted early Wednesday by unknown gunmen from her residence in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers state in Nigeria’s Niger Delta oil region, was freed unharmed early Friday, the police said It was not immediately clear whether or not any ransom was paid for her release. On Thursday, her captors reduced the ransom they placed on her from 500 million naira to 200 million naira, but the family said it would not pay any ransom to secure her release (117 naira=1US$).
Seinye was abducted by over 50 gunmen, who shot dead a private security guard and wounded three policemen and the daughter of the abducted woman. She is the wife of prominent oil businessman and politician O. Lulu-Briggs, from the predominant Ijaw ethnic group in the region. According to local NGO Niger Delta Monitoring Corporate Watch, some 340 persons, including 11 children and 5 women, were abducted in the oil region between January 2007 and January 2008. However, most were freed unharmed, some after the payment of huge sums of money in ransom, which are never publicly acknowledged.
