Lagos - Gunmen have kidnapped the three-year-old son of a lawmaker in southern Nigeria's Rivers State, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported on Wednesday.
The boy was snatched from his school in Port Harcourt, the state capital on Tuesday, NAN quoted state police spokesperson Ireju Barasua as saying.
The boy is the son of Linda Somiari, a female member of the Rivers state assembly.
Port Harcourt is the capital of Nigeria's oil-rich but volatile Niger Delta where there has been an upsurge in kidnappings of local and foreign workers in the past year.
Around 200 expatriates have been seized but most have been released unharmed after a few days or a few weeks, often after payment of ransom.
The abductors or attackers mainly belong to well-organised militant groups calling for a greater share of the oil wealth for the provinces where oil is found.
The bulk of the revenues go to the federal government.
These attacks, coupled with acts of vandalism and sabotage, have cost Nigeria - the world's sixth largest oil exporter - dear, translating into an annual revenue loss of $4,4 billion (about R31-billion).