UPDATE Nigeria: Lawmaker's kidnappers demand $32,000 ransom

UPDATES WITH RANSOM DEMAND

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria (AA)- The abductors of a Nigerian member of parliament demanded $32,000 to release him late Wednesday.

“This afternoon, they called the family from an unknown number to make a demand of 10 million Nigerian nairas [$32,000] ransom to free him,” Abubakar Adamu, a member of kidnapped lawmaker Sani Bello Mashi’s staff, told Anadolu Agency.

According to government minister Hadi Sirika, Mashi was taken late on Tuesday as he was being driven to his farm with an aide in northwestern Kaduna state, in the country’s northwest – just two months after a senior foreign official was kidnapped in the same area.

Bello represents the Mashi/Dvisi constituency in Nigeria’s 360-member House of Representatives.

Anadolu Agency learned that the lawmaker was abducted along with one of his aides but the kidnappers left the vehicle's driver.

“They were abducted around 5 p.m. [1600GMT] precisely in Gobrawa village in Kaduna where his farm is located,” Abubakar Adamu, another aide to the lawmaker, told Anadolu Agency by phone.

The kidnappers let Masi speak to his family, he added, but did not say if they had agreed to pay the ransom.

There is no indication yet as to why Bello was targeted, but many abductions – particularly when no election is imminent – are for ransom demands which can run to millions of naira.

High-profile abductions are becoming a trend in many parts of the country, especially in the Kaduna axis.

Sierra Leone's deputy high commissioner to Nigeria, Maj. Gen. Alfred Nelson-Williams, was kidnapped in the state two months ago. He has since been freed but it is not clear if any ransom was paid. His abductors had demanded $150,000.