Two Britons who have been held hostage for four months are “alive and well” but will not be released until the leader of Nigeria’s main militant group is freed, the organisation said yesterday.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta released pictures of Matthew Maguire, of Merseyside, and Robin Hughes, who are believed to have been among 27 oil workers, including five expatriates, kidnapped when their vessel was hijacked on September 9. The other hostages were later released.
The group said the Britons would not be released until the Nigerian government frees their leader, Henry Okah, who is currently being tried for arms trafficking.
The statement said: “We intend to hold on to them for as long as a very sick and dying Henry Okah is held hostage by the Nigerian state. Since their fate is now tied to his, God forbid that Henry Okah should die in detention.”
It added they were “alive and well” and the militants would continue to kidnap “high-value oil workers from western Europe and North America” in 2009 to keep pressure on the government to empower the inhabitants of Nigeria’s oil-rich states.
In the pictures, the pair look dishevelled but did not appear to have been injured.
When the other hostages were released, the militants said it was holding on to the Britons as “leverage”.
The militants are behind nearly three years of rising violence in the southern Niger Delta. They claim their impoverished areas have not benefited from five decades of oil production and want more federally-held oil funds sent to southern oil states.
The Nigerian government has denounced the militants as criminals.
Nigeria, which is routinely ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, is Africa’s top oil producer but attacks on the industry’s infrastructure have reduced production by almost a quarter.
Mr Maguire, a 34-year-old diver, was taken from a boat taking him to work on a rig.
The photos were the first his family have seen since he was abducted in September.