ABUJA - Nigeria has charged two people with the kidnapping of seven foreign oil workers in the Niger Delta in August for a hefty ransom, court papers obtained on Thursday said. Gbokos Osvwo and Asiagbe Lucky are accused of receiving a 35 million naira ($272,479) ransom before releasing six hostages -- two Britons, an American, German, Irish and Pole -- ten days after seizing them at gunpoint from a nightclub in the oil city of Port Harcourt.The seventh, a German, was kidnapped in a separate incident. Other members of the gang that raided the nightclub and seized the German in another operation are still at large.
Osvwo and Lucky pleaded not guilty to a seven-count charge. The judge ordered them to be remanded and adjourned the case to Dec. 4 for hearing. They were the second set of hostage-takers to be charged since August when President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered security services to crack down on kidnappers and threatened to sanction oil firms caught paying ransoms.
ObasanjoÂ’s threat signalled a change in the governmentÂ’s stance towards an upsurge in violence in the Niger Delta. In August, four people arrested over a kidnapping at an oil facility operated by US oil major Chevron, were charged with terrorism. If convicted, they could face life in prison.
Abductions, mostly of foreign oil workers, are common in the lawless delta which accounts for all of NigeriaÂ’s 2.4 million barrels per day of crude oil output. The kidnappers are mostly