For the love and allure of oil money, unidentified gunmen in the early
hours of Thursday kidnapped Joseph Agama, the younger brother to Nigeria’s
Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, Police
sources have confirmed. The kidnap came barely six months after the sister
of the minister was kidnapped last October in Port Harcourt.
The gunmen came in a boat in the early hours of Thursday.
Spokesman for the Police in Bayelsa State, Asinim Butswat, confirmed the
incident. He said that the command got a report shortly after the incident
happened.
According to Butswat, the police received a distress call on Thursday from
the victim’s father, Maxwell Agama.
Butswat said that the incident occurred at about 12.30 am on Thursday at
Yenaka Community, a coastal settlement in Yenagoa Local Government Area of
Bayelsa State.
Community sources said that the armed gunmen took off with the victim to
an unknown destination after abandoning their original boat.
Family sources said that the kidnappers were yet to establish contact or
demand ransom.
Late last year, a sister to the minister, Osiyo Agama, was kidnapped in
October 2014 in Port Harcourt and later rescued by a combined team of
Joint Task Force and Department of State Security Services.
The minister is seen as one of the wealthiest ministers in the country and
she has maintained a high profile life style to justify her juicy
portfolio. Her donation of N70 million to the Bayelsa chapter of Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) is currently causing crisis in the party leading to
the suspension of Col. Sam Inokoba as state chairman of the party.
She has courted several controversies with the National Assembly but in
spite of that she has continued to gain high global rating among OPEC
nations.
Political Economist