French oil major, Total, has moved its
staff from Abuja following the kidnapping of a French national last
month, Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie said on Friday.
This is the first time in recent history
that a company has said it has evacuated foreigners from Nigeria’s
capital due to security concerns, Reuters reports.
Western diplomatic sources told Reuters earlier this week that embassies were not planning to remove families of their staff from Abuja.
“What we do first is to limit the number
of expatriates, not because they have more rights to be protected than
the others, but because they are a more interesting target, if I may
say,” de Margerie told France 24 television.
He did not elaborate on the number of staff moved.
“In Nigeria, we have three installations
… We moved our people from Abuja, which is the city that is most at
risk, to Lagos and Port-Harcourt, and if necessary, we move them back to
Paris,” he told the TV channel on the sidelines of the World Economic
Forum in Davos.
Extremist group, Jama’atu Ansarul
Musilimina Fi Biladis Sudan, kidnapped a French national last month in
the remote northern town of Rimi, close to the Niger border.
The group threatened to continue to
target the French because of the country’s support of military action in
Mali and its decision to ban the full face veil.
JAMBS, which broke away from Boko Haram, claimed an attack on a military convoy taking troops from Nigeria to Mali last week in Okene.
The group, thought to be a breakaway from better known Islamist sect Boko Haram, has risen to greater prominence in recent weeks.
It claimed responsibility for a dawn
raid on the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Abuja in November, where it
said hundreds of prisoners were released.
De Margerie said Total had also moved some of its personnel out of Algeria.
Last week’s siege at an Algerian gas
plant by Islamist militants, which ended with heavy loss of lives among
foreign hostages, also prompted the French oil major to take extra
measures to protect its staff in the northern African country.
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