Nigerian footballer Obodo abducted, says family

Jun 10, 2012 |

AFP via PTI

Lagos

Tags:

Nigeria international Christian Obodo has been abducted in Warri, southern Nigeria, his family confirmed on Saturday.

The player's family said Obodo, who last season played for Lecce in Italy's Serie A, was driving alone in his car following a visit to a relative when he was taken by unknown gunmen.

"His whereabouts are unknown but his car was left behind by the kidnappers. We are yet to receive any call demanding a ransom," said a family member, under condition of anonymity.

Oil city Warri is in the restive Niger Delta, where kidnapping is common.

Obodo was for several years a Nigeria international. Last season, he played on loan at Lecce from Serie A side Udinese. Lecce were relegated to Serie AB on May 13 after finishing third from bottom of Italy's top flight.

The 28-year-old midfielder is not the first Nigerian footballer to be abducted. The brother of Everton defender Joseph Yobo was kidnapped before he was later freed, while most recently the father of Chelsea midfielder John Mikel Obi was also abducted before he was freed after a police raid.

A brief statement from Lecce said: "We hope the situation can be resolved as soon as possible in the best possible way."

Obodo's brother, Kenneth Obodo, who is also a footballer in Italy and is currently in Nigeria, was quoted by Italian news agency ANSA as saying: "Christian is fine. We are in touch with the kidnappers, who want some money.

"We can't give them more than 100,000 euros ($125,000). Unfortunately these things happen in our country."

His brother-in-law, Obidike Okechukwu, was quoted by ANSA as saying that the kidnappers had asked for a ransom of 150,000 euros.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/159516" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b79e2e11d01776d00368f9e697de9869" value="form-b79e2e11d01776d00368f9e697de9869" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80634754" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>