For the love and allure of oil money, unidentified gunmen in the early hours of Thursday kidnapped Joseph Agama, the younger brother to Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, Police sources have confirmed. The kidnap came barely six months after the sister of the minister was kidnapped last October in Port Harcourt.

The gunmen came in a boat in the early hours of Thursday.

Spokesman for the Police in Bayelsa State, Asinim Butswat, confirmed the incident. He said that the command got a report shortly after the incident happened.

According to Butswat, the police received a distress call on Thursday from the victim’s father, Maxwell Agama.

Butswat said that the incident occurred at about 12.30 am on Thursday at Yenaka Community, a coastal settlement in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

Community sources said that the armed gunmen took off with the victim to an unknown destination after abandoning their original boat.

Family sources said that the kidnappers were yet to establish contact or demand ransom.

Late last year, a sister to the minister, Osiyo Agama, was kidnapped in October 2014 in Port Harcourt and later rescued by a combined team of Joint Task Force and Department of State Security Services.

The minister is seen as one of the wealthiest ministers in the country and she has maintained a high profile life style to justify her juicy portfolio. Her donation of N70 million to the Bayelsa chapter of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is currently causing crisis in the party leading to the suspension of Col. Sam Inokoba as state chairman of the party.

She has courted several controversies with the National Assembly but in spite of that she has continued to gain high global rating among OPEC nations.