Lagos - Police on
Sunday night rescued midfielder Christian Obodo, a player for Italy's Udinese
football club now on loan to Lecce, a day after he was abducted in Nigeria's
oil-rich southern delta, a police spokesperson said.
Delta state police
spokesperson Charles Muka said officers freed Obodo and arrested several of his
suspected kidnappers, who had not even left the oil-producing state where he
was abducted on Saturday. Muka declined to say what led police to the
kidnappers. Police and security agencies in Nigeria have traced suspects using
their mobile phone transmissions in the past.
The kidnappers
made contact with the international football player's family in Warri shortly
afterward abducting him, making a ransom demand of $187 500, Muka said.
Lecce was
relegated to a second-tier league this season, while Udinese finished third in
Serie A this season.
Kidnappings remain
common in the Niger Delta, a region that provides about 2.4 million barrels of
oil a day for Nigeria. Gangs and militants once only targeted foreign oil
workers, but in recent years have increasingly gone after middle- and
upper-class Nigerians there.
Nigerian football
players and their families have been targeted in the past by kidnappers. In
August, two Nigerian soldiers and others took part in the kidnapping of Chelsea
midfielder John Obi Mikel's father from Jos in central Nigeria, and at one
point demanded a $4bn ransom they considered "chicken change" for the
team, officials said. Authorities later traced Mikel's father to the northern
city of Kano and freed him.
In 2008, gunmen
abducted the younger brother of Everton defender Joseph Yobo as he left a
nightclub in Port Harcourt, the delta's largest city. The brother was released
unharmed about two weeks later, though it was unclear if a ransom had been
paid.
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