The location was confirmed at 8.02am GMT by the Marine Traffic, which said the ship has not made any calls in the past three days.
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Nigerian military sources disclosed that the ship which is a chemical/oil tanker is now under the custody of the Beninois Navy.
The ship, named “Leon Dias” with IMO number 9279927 was hijacked in the evening on Friday, January 29, in the Gulf of Guinea in position 02 30N 005 35E.
But a military source, who confided in one of our correspondents, said the Nigerian Navy was collaborating with its counterpart in Benin Republic in the ongoing efforts to retrieve the hijacked vessel.
A ship reportedly hijacked by pro-Biafra militants has been released although members of the crew are still being held hostage. Other officers say the navy is in pursuit.
Abubakar also cautioned the media to take into account the national interest when reporting the hijacking of the ship.
Punch Newspapers reports that the DHQ revealed that the ship, believed to be an oil tanker, was seized about 7.5 nautical miles off the Port of Cotonou.
Although it did not give the name of the ship, it said the ship is now in about 7.4 nautical miles off the coast of Nigeria. “Therefore anybody who engages or is engaging in sabotage is engaging in an act of criminality and the law of the land will take its course”, he added.
The hijacking indicates the Biafran agitators could be working with some Niger Delta militants who recently bombed oil pipelines in the Niger Delta. Africa’s biggest economy and oil producer also is battered by slashed petroleum prices.
The ultimatum was received from “General Ben” giving a 31-day deadline to release Nnamdi Kanu, director of the banned Radio Biafra, who was detained on 17 October and subsequently charged with treasonable offences and denied bail.
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Nigeria’s Igbo people prosecuted a civil war to create a separate state of Biafra in the southeast that killed a million people in the 1960s. Many Igbos claim they still suffer discrimination.
