Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Gunmen abducted a novelist and retired army captain in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region, said Lieutenant-Colonel Sagir Musa, a military spokesman.

Captain Elechi Amadi was kidnapped in the village of Aluu, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) east of the oil hub of Port Harcourt, Musa said by phone today from the city.

“We suspect that the motive for the kidnapping is pecuniary and we have alerted all security agencies to be on alert to ensure the release of Captain Amadi,” Musa said.

Violence in the delta, Nigeria’s main oil-producing region, has cut the country’s crude exports by more than 20 percent since 2006. The nation has Africa’s largest hydrocarbon reserves, with more than 30 billion barrels of oil and 187 trillion cubic feet of gas. It’s the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports.

Amadi, 74, is the author of novels ‘The Concubine,’ ‘The Slave’ and ‘The Great Ponds,’ published in the 1960s and the 1970s. He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Amadi condemned indiscriminate violence in the Niger Delta in an interview with the Lagos-based Vanguard newspaper, reproduced on his Web site.

“Militancy is fine so long as those leading the militants have the intellectual capacity to know where they are going,” he was quoted as saying. “But, situations where you have a mob ready to pillage and kill, kidnap, then that is debased militancy.”

Police spokeswoman Rita Abbey said no one had claimed responsibility for the abduction and no ransom demand had been made. Police are investigating the incident, she said by phone from Port Harcourt.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Tamuno in Port Harcourt via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net; Dulue Mbachu in Lagos via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 6, 2009 07:42 EST