(http://edge.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Dr-360x225.jpg) The Spanish Government on Wednesday formally declared one of its citizens, Dr. Jose Manuel Machimbarrena, missing in Nigeria.
The 58-year-old doctor, who has been in Nigeria since 1978, was seized from his car near his home in Enugu on June 4, 2011 by a gang of armed men and little contact had been made with him since then.
He had just left his office at Niger Foundation Clinic, where he was the head of Clinical Services.
Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, told journalists at the halls of Congress in Madrid that his government was regarding the mater as a serious case of kidnapping for ransom, reports influential Spanish newspaper, ABC.
He said the kidnap of the doctor was 'economic and not political', adding that the organization he worked for had called for "absolute discretion and room for negotiation."
The minister said political considerations were discarded since the kidnap took place in the Southern part of Nigeria and not the North, where the deadly Boko Haram sect had been blamed for the abduction of foreigners.
Two Europeans who were kidnapped in Birnin Kebbi in May 2011 were killed in February as Nigerian and British special forces tried to rescue them from their captors in Sokoto.
The Spanish minister said the government was acting "with the discretion that it has to act in all these cases."
ABC reports that the Spanish Embassy in Nigeria has been working quietly to effect the doctor's release.
Machimbarrena, a native of Cartagena in Spain, attended the University of Navarra and was widely known in Enugu for his NGO work.
He had been involved in health care to the rural populace in the city and had helped to channel aid from individuals and NGOs to provide medicines and medical supplies to patients.
The doctor also usually visited a rural clinic in Iwollo, on the outskirts of Enugu, to serve the residents of disadvantaged areas.
The Punch
Who and who their be in this? NAIJA self.