CNN
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A manhunt is underway for the killers of a senatorial candidate for Nigeria’s opposition Labor Celebration, who was shot and burned in his marketing campaign automobile late Wednesday within the nation’s southeastern Enugu State, native police stated Thursday.
The politician, Oyibo Chukwu, was murdered together with an unnamed private aide by assailants police suspect had been operatives of banned separatist group IPOB and its militant wing ESN.
Chukwu’s homicide was one in every of a number of assaults focused at members of different political events late Wednesday, a police assertion stated, including that investigations had been ongoing.
“The Commissioner of Police, Enugu State Command, CP Ahmed Ammani, fdc, has ordered the … manhunt of the subversive prison components, suspected to be IPOB/ESN renegades, who … ambushed and concurrently attacked and murdered Individuals’s Democratic Celebration (PDP) and Labour Celebration (LP) members, and in addition tried to assault the convoy of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Governorship Candidate.”
The armed attackers stormed their goal factors in a tricycle and Hilux automobile, the assertion added.
The assaults are taking place lower than three days earlier than Nigeria’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
Labor Celebration presidential candidate Peter Obi stated in a tweet Thursday he was saddened to be taught of the brutal homicide of his celebration’s senate candidate.
“I obtained with deep shock and disappointment, the information of the painful killing of Barr Oyibo Chukwu, the Senatorial Candidate of the Labour Celebration, for Enugu East Senatorial Zone. … I strongly condemn the killing of Barr Chukwu in all its entirety,” Obi tweeted including that Nigerians ought to “freely train their civic duties with out intimidation.”
Greater than 93 million Nigerians are registered to take part within the nation’s basic elections beginning Saturday, however uncertainty hangs over voter turnout on polling day, with insecurity among the many largest considerations.
Separatist gangs have terrorized the southeastern area the place agitations for a breakaway Biafra state have turned violent many instances. In different components of the nation, marauding gunmen recognized domestically as bandits have carried out mass kidnappings principally for ransom.
Voting won’t happen in additional than 200 polling models throughout Nigeria, INEC says, due to considerations over safety.
The Nigeria department of Amnesty Worldwide has additionally condemned the killing, describing it as “horrific.”
“Amnesty Worldwide strongly condemns the horrific killing final night time of the Labour Celebration (LP) candidate … Oyibo Chukwu, who was additionally gruesomely burnt inside his automobile whereas coming back from a marketing campaign exercise in Agbani, Enugu state … The Nigerian authorities should order a immediate, thorough, impartial, neutral, clear, and efficient investigation into the killing, and convey these suspected to be accountable to justice,” the human rights group tweeted Thursday.
