Gunmen burn another election office in Nigeria’s southeast

Police have repelled an attack on a station in Nigeria’s restive southeast but the gunmen stormed into a nearby election office and set it on fire, a spokesman said Monday.

Southeast Nigeria has seen a surge in violent assaults on security personnel and key government offices since the start of the year, leaving scores of officers dead.

“There was an attack on our station in Akwa yesterday but it was repelled by the gallant officers on duty,” Anambra state police spokesman Tochukwu Ikenga told AFP.

“Unfortunately, the attackers used a decoy to deceive the police and went to a nearby INEC (election body) office and set part of the building ablaze with explosives,” he said.

He said no arrests had been made but police were investigating.

“An investigation is under way to unravel those behind the series of attacks and arson in recent weeks,” he said.

Last week, electoral chief Mahmood Yakubu condemned rising armed attacks on election offices, saying the violence might jeopardise election preparations.

Nigeria holds general elections in 2023 to choose the successor to President Muhammadu Buhari, who took office in 2015.

At least five election offices and vital election materials have been razed in the southeast alone this year.

Last week, the INEC headquarters in Enugu was also attacked.

No group has claimed responsibility, but Nigeria’s southeast has seen a surge in attacks on police and prisons that authorities have blamed on separatists who want more independence for the indigenous Igbo people in the region.

The separatist Indigenous People of Biafra or IPOB movement has denied involvement on several occasions.

Buhari has come under pressure over his government’s response to the country’s growing insecurity.

Nigeria’s armed forces are also battling a more than decade-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast, and a surge in bandit attacks and mass kidnappings mostly in the northeast.