Three killed in attack on Imo INEC office

Three gunmen were killed early Monday when police repelled an assault on an election office in Nigeria’s southeast, police said, in the latest violence in the restive region.

The attack on the main office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Owerri, capital of Imo state, followed similar assaults less than three months to next year’s presidential vote.

Nigerians will go to the ballot box in February to elect a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army commander who is stepping down after two terms in office.

Recent attacks on INEC offices, particularly in the southeast where separatist groups are active, and violence by armed criminal gangs are raising concerns over electoral violence.

“The INEC headquarters in Owerri was attacked early this morning by some gunmen who destroyed part of the building, some furniture and materials,” state police spokesman Michael Abattam told AFP.

He said the assault was repelled by the police who engaged the gunmen in a shootout.

“Three of the attackers were killed while two were arrested,” he said.

INEC spokesman Festus Okoye confirmed the violence in a statement on Monday, adding that “no critical election materials were destroyed.”

He said it was the third attack on the commission’s facilities in Imo State in less than two weeks following earlier attacks the Orlu office and the Oru West local office at the start of December.

The electoral body has recently warned of the threat of intensifying campaign violence ahead of the election, saying it had tracked at least 50 attacks in the last two months.

Parliamentary and state elections will also be held in February.

No group claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack, but southeast Nigeria has seen scores of assaults blamed on the outlawed separatists, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group or its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN).

IPOB, which seeks a separate state for ethnic Igbo people in the southeast, has repeatedly denied responsibility for the violence.

More than 100 police and other security personnel have been killed since the beginning of last year in targeted attacks, according to local media tallies.