Nigerian police seeks to free finance minister’s abducted mother

LAGOS — Nigerian police on Monday sought to free the elderly mother of the country’s finance minister, an ex-World Bank managing director seeking to clean up graft, after her abduction in the country’s south.
Sunday’s shocking kidnapping put renewed focus on insecurity in Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer, though the motive for the crime remained unclear and police declined to say if a ransom had been demanded.
“We might not have been able to establish motive, but it is a clear case of kidnap,” police spokesman Frank Mba told AFP. “The police have already launched a massive manhunt for the perpetrators of those crimes.”
He declined to provide details, but a statement from the spokesman for Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the abduction occurred Sunday at her mother’s home in Delta state in the country’s south, where ransom kidnappings occur regularly.
Local media reported that a gang of gunmen went to the house — locally called a “palace” due to her husband’s position as a traditional ruler in the area — in broad daylight in the afternoon.
When the 82-year-old Kamene Okonjo, a professor, went outside to offer drinks to labourers carrying out work around the front gate, the gunmen emerged from hiding and seized her.
Some of the reports said one of the suspects went inside to steal her handbag and that a policeman usually on duty was absent, while the victim’s husband had traveled.
“At this point, it is difficult to say whether those behind this action are the same people who have made threats against the coordinating minister in the recent past or other elements with hostile motives,” the finance ministry statement said Sunday.
“No possibility can be ruled out at this point.”
It added that “this is obviously a very difficult time for the entire Okonjo family. But the family is hopeful of a positive outcome as it fervently prays for the quick and safe return of the matriarch.”
Kidnappings for ransom have occurred frequently in Nigeria’s southern oil-producing Niger Delta region, but rarely with such prominent victims.
Okonjo-Iweala has pushed to clean up corruption in one of the world’s most graft-ridden nations, particularly related to a fuel subsidy programme alleged to be riddled with graft.
The minister has been in a high-profile struggle with fuel importers over payment of subsidies, with government officials delaying payments to allow for verification of claims.
A parliamentary probe earlier this year found Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, lost $6.8 billion through the subsidy programme between 2009-2011. The subsidies are designed to hold petrol prices low.
The probe detailed what has long been suspected in Nigeria, describing a lack of accounting, overpayments, willful disregard for regulations and outright incompetence in managing the programme.
The respected Okonjo-Iweala was earlier this year a candidate to head the World Bank, where she previously worked as a managing director.
The job eventually went to Korean-American physician Jim Yong Kim though the Nigerian minister was viewed as a strong candidate to break the US lock on the post.
Her father is a traditional ruler in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with some 160 million people.
Nigeria has been hit by waves of violence in various parts of the country. The main source of insecurity has been an insurgency by Islamist extremist group Boko Haram in the country’s northern and central regions.
Kidnappings in the south have long been a problem, though an amnesty deal for Niger Delta militants in 2009 led to a sharp drop in unrest.