LAGOS (AFP) – Southern Nigeria’s main armed group MEND said Wednesday it had freed a Lebanese hostage from his kidnappers two days after his abduction.

“A commando unit from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) today, Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at about 1700 Hrs conducted a successful rescue of Mr Melad Nasari as promised, from deep inside the bush where he was confined by his abductors,” said a MEND statement.

“During the course of the operation, they heard the frantic shout for help from an individual who introduced himself as Mr. Patrick Akorodu, a manager with Zenith Bank Omoku branch in Rivers state.

“He said he was a victim of the criminal gang that abducted the Lebanese national,” the statement added.

Both men were in the safe custody of MEND and were now en route to a drop off zone where they would be handed to contacts from the state security service.

Nigerian police said on Monday unidentified gunmen had kidnapped a Lebanese engineer in southern Nigeria’s oil hub of Port Harcourt.

MEND, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, claims to be fighting for a greater share of the oil revenue for the local population in southern Nigeria.

It is the country’s most prominent armed militant group and has distanced itself from the abduction and offered to rescue the Lebanese from the kidnappers.

“This assistance is purely a goodwill gesture and does not affiliate us with the (Nigerian) government in any way,” said MEND on Monday.

In the past three years, Nigeria has seen a spate of kidnappings both of local and foreign oil workers and of relatives of prominent politicians, often by criminal gangs seeking a ransom, but sometimes also for political ends.

Since the beginning of 2006, militant attacks have cut Nigeria’s oil output by more than one quarter. Production currently stands at between 1.8 and two million barrels a day against 2.6 million barrels a day two years ago.

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