Unknown gunmen yesterday kidnapped the 67-year-old father of a Rivers State lawmaker, Chief Augustine Ordu, in Port Harcourt.
This is coming as Niger Delta militants hijacked a vessel belonging to Agip Oil Company, killed a crew member and took another hostage.
Ordu was said to be preparing for church when the armed men arrived his residence at Ekere Street, Rumuobiakani.
The victim, who was said to be in the bathroom at about 7am, ran out to the sitting room when he heard the voices of his would-be abductors.
It was said that Ordu thought some people were quarrelling in his sitting room, not knowing that they were there to kidnap him.
He thus ran straight into their waiting hands and they took him away.
His son, Hon. Collins Ordu, representing Obio/Akpor Constituency 1 in the Rivers State House of Assembly, condemned his father’s abduction and reasoned that it might have been done for pecuniary reasons.
The lawmaker regretted that while Governor Chubuike Amaechi was doing everything possible to control the crime upsurge in the state, the hoodlums were unrepentant, which he said proved their lack of morals in their undiluted criminality.
The lawmaker said those behind the act were yet to contact him and therefore had not made any demands.
Spokesman of the Joint Task Force (JTF) in the state, Lt. Colonel Sagir Musa, confirmed the kidnapping.