There were fresh calls last night for oil companies to pull British workers out of Nigeria after the UK Government warned it would be “reckless” to remain without proper security advice.
Nigeria’s main militant group vowed to attack British interests after Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged to back the government in the country’s oil region.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it will resume attacks in the oil-rich region from midnight on Saturday.
A spokesman said the group was calling off a two-week-old ceasefire because of Mr Brown’s promise at the G8 summit in Japan to support the Nigerian government in its efforts to end violence in the oil-producing region. That led the Foreign Office to update its advice to UK citizens living and working in the country, urging them to leave the Delta.
It states: “If you decide to travel to or remain in these areas it would be reckless to do so unless and until you have taken full, appropriate professional security advice and have acted on it.
“You should consider permanent armed protection, but be aware even this cannot guarantee your safety.”
Last night Jake Molloy, of the offshore industry liaison committee, said it should not be up to workers to leave.
He said: “The onus needs to be removed from the employees and placed on the employers, because they have a duty of care to their workers and should accept responsibility.
“If this is the advice of the Foreign Office then employers need to look at what they are doing. Realistically, I do not think companies will change their policy, but it would send a message to Nigeria if they were to do something.”
The Foreign Office first urged workers to return home in June last year after officials ruled the security risk in the trouble-torn Niger Delta region was too severe.
Since then, some firms have withdrawn workers, but around 250 Scottish oil workers are still thought to be in Nigeria, about half of them from the north-east.
Kidnappings of foreign workers for ransom are common in the lawless delta, which produces around 2.5million barrels of crude oil a day for Nigeria.
Since January 2006, some 36 Britons and more than 180 foreigners have been kidnapped. One Briton was killed.
In October that year, four north-east men were taken hostage. Graeme Buchan, 30, of Stuartfield, near Mintlaw, Paul Smith, 32, of Peterhead, Sandy Cruden, 45, of Inverurie, and George McLean, 42, of Elgin, were among seven men seized at gunpoint from a bar. They were held for almost three weeks by a gang who beat them with sticks and machetes and threatened them.
All were later released.