Berkeley professor shot in hand during visit to Nigeria

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jul 26, 2007 | by Scott MarshallSTAFF

BERKELEY -- A University of California, Berkeley, professor was shot in the hand in Nigeria on Wednesday when gunmen stormed a newspaper office where he was attending an awards ceremony, the university reported.

Michael Watts, 56, was at the National Point newspaper in Port Harcourt, in southeast Nigeria in the Niger Delta, when at least six gunmen shot him and a security guard, ransacked the offices and shot windows, National Point reporter Ibiba Donpedro told The Associated Press.

Both were treated at a hospital. The motive was unclear, but the gunmen said, "Where's the white man? Where's the money from the bank?" Donpedro told AP.

The southern portion of Nigeria is volatile, and Watts had e- mailed a colleague days earlier noting the violence. He was shot a day after a Nigerian oil worker was killed and a state legislator's wife was kidnapped, according to AP.

Watts, a geography professor who joined UC Berkeley in 1979, is director of the school's Center for African Studies and frequently travels to Africa.

He was a 2003 Guggenheim fellow and researches the relationship among oil, politics and violence in West Africa. Nigeria supplies about 9 percent of United States oil imports, Watts wrote in a January article in a political newsletter, CounterPunch.

"He works very closely with a lot of Nigerian scholars and journalists," said Martha Saavedra, associate director of the center.

"He's doing fine," although shaken, said UC Berkeley spokesman Bob Sanders. "One tried to shoot him in the leg, he hit his hand instead."

The Associated Press contributed to this story. Reach Scott Marshall at (925) 945-4782 or smarshall2@cctimes.com.