Traditional ruler kidnapped

Unidentified youths have kidnapped and beheaded the chief of Ugborodo, a village in the volatile Niger Delta, news organisations and other sources said on Friday. The sources said young Ijaws were suspected of committing the crime. “Expect things to erupt,” Akin Akingbulu, executive director of the Independent Journalism Centre (IJC) in Lagos, told IRIN. His assessment came against the backdrop of news reports of an uneasy calm in the troubled Escravos area, after Ijaw youths invaded the town of Arunton in the Warri Southwest Local Government Area of Delta State, early this week. The beheaded local ruler, identified as Chief Ogibodide, was kidnapped from his home late on Tuesday the ‘Post Express’ newspaper reported on Friday. Ugborodo residents were afraid, the newspaper said, because of rumours that Ijaws were planning to burn a Chevron gas installation at Escravos. A leading Lagos daily, ‘The Guardian’, said security had been increased following reports of Ogibodide’s decapitation and the burning of three Itsekiri towns. The army’s 20 Amphibious Battalion in Effurun, near Warri, has taken up position as far as upland Warri, searching cars and their occupants for arms, the paper said.