Christian Obodo in the Nigerian jersey in 2006. -
BEN CURTIS / AP / SIPA / AP / SIPA
Former Nigerian national team football player Christian Obodo, kidnapped on Sunday in the oil-rich Delta, a southern state in Nigeria, said on Monday he managed to escape.
Obodo, 36, was driving through the southern town of Warri on Sunday when two gunmen forced their way into his car, he said.
Obodo had already been kidnapped in the same region in 2012
“They pushed my girlfriend out of the car,” he told AFP by phone, adding that a third gunman was in a car behind them.
"I was praying and trying to have a conversation with them asking them what I had done but they barked at me and told me to shut up and if I made any noise I would be killed. ”Obodo said.
The Nigeria team regular between 2003 and 2008 described how his captors drove around town for several hours until the two men asked him to stop the car and got out to talk to their accomplice in the car behind.
The former midfielder of the Nigerian national team Christian Obodo has been kidnapped in Nigeria.
@SkySport 🇳🇬 pic.twitter.com/T5Y5VA9fDp
- Angelo Mangiante (@angelomangiante) November 16, 2020
“I looked behind and, feeling a little space, I was off at full speed,” he said.
Police spokesman Onome Onowakpoyeya confirmed that Obodo was briefly abducted and released.
Kidnappings for ransom by criminal gangs are common in Africa's most populous country, particularly in the Delta oil region.
Obodo had already been kidnapped in the same region in 2012, and rescued the next day during a police raid.
His captors then demanded a ransom of approximately 188,000 dollars (149,000 euros).
Passed by Perugia, Fiorentina and Udinese at the start of his career, the former midfielder completed it in 2017 after a last freelance in Greece, at Apollo Smyrnis.
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