RIVERS, BAYELSA AT TOP LIST ON HOSTAGE TAKING

Rivers State has emerged tops in a statistics on the infamous act of hostage taking among states of the oil rich Niger Delta as at Thursday, 13 March, 2008 with Bayelsa State occupying a notorious second position.

While Delta and Akwa Ibom States came at a distant third and fourth position respectively, Cross River and Edo States were yet to record any incident of hostage taking that has characterized the region in recent times.

The statistics was obtained by our correspondent from the Niger Delta Development Monitoring and Corporate Watch, a Non-governmental Organization based in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State and signed by its Co-ordinator, Comrade Nengi James.

It showed that Rivers State recorded a total of 156 incidents of hostage taking between 1999 and 12 March, 2008, while Bayelsa State followed closely with 147 dastardly cases of the menace from 2003 to December, 2007.

Delta State had a marginal record of 45 incidents between February, 2006 and May 2007 while Akwa Ibom had a dismal record of 15 hostage takings from October 2006 to June, 2007.

According to the statistics, the last incident of hostage taking in Rivers State occurred on 12 March, 2008 near Calabar River area of Port Harcourt when six workers of Julius Berger were kidnapped.

In Bayelsa State, the last case of hostage taking took place in last December during which the 91-year old Pa Zidafamo Thomas, father of the state's Accountant-General was kidnapped at Bolou-Orua community in Sagbama Local Government Area.

Also, Delta State had its last recorded case of hostage taking in May, 2007 when a staff of Nigercat Oil Services Company was kidnapped at Enerhen Junction, Warri while Akwa Ibom had June, 2007 as the last date of kidnapping of seven workers of Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria at Ikot-Abasi.

The spate of kidnapping and hostage taking in the Niger Delta has been on the rise despite the initiative of the Niger Delta Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee.

While it is argued in certain quarters that the act of hostage taking was aimed at drawing attention to the long years of neglect of the region, observers have continued to insist that the act has been criminalized to make money from affected authorities, parents and guardians.

Many have also pointed out that to curb the incident of hostage taking, the federal government, and the states and local governments of the Niger Delta must translate speeches into actions of real development of the communities.