Bauchi — Suspected Boko Haram insurgents have reportedly kidnapped 10 members of a geological research team from the University of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria, the state oil company, which contracted the work, said on Wednesday.
For more than a year, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) has been surveying for what it says could be vast oil reserves in the Lake Chad Basin, a region wracked by Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency, which has killed at least 20,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes.
Oil cartel Opec member Nigeria relies on crude oil for two-thirds of government revenue. Attacks on energy facilities in its southern Niger Delta oil heartland in 2016 cut production by more than a third, deepening the recession in Africa’s biggest economy.
NNPC spokesperson Ndu Ughamadu said the contractors were kidnapped near Jibi village in Borno state on Tuesday afternoon.
READ MORE
Boko Haram kidnaps university researchers in Borno
0 Comments