Gunmen assassinated Christopher Eleghu, a Labor Party (LP) National Assembly candidate for the Onuimo Local Government Territory.
Imo State Police Command spokesman Mike Abattam said the incident happened in the early hours of Friday at Mr Eleghu’s country house in the Umucheke community of Onuimo council..
The assassins, he said, burned down his house after killing him, and also burnt his vehicle and other valuables.
He said the Imo State Commissioner of Police Mohammed Barde has ordered an investigation into the unfortunate incident and has also activated all tactical units of the command to go after the assailants for possible arrest and apprehension.
A few weeks ago, a female LP leader Victoria Chintex was killed in Kaduna.
Gunmen have equally targeted offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the South-East state in the past months. The most recent one which happened a few days back claimed some lives.
In his reaction to the attacks, Governor Hope Uzodimma linked them to political actors.
“If we collaborate this with the events of the past, we have continuously said that what is happening in Imo State is politically contrived,” he said when he visited the Imo Police headquarters after one of the attacks.
“Some people think that they can win the election yet they don’t want the election. How would they now win?”
But INEC said critical materials were not destroyed in the incident.
“The attack affected the part of the building occupied by the Election and Party Monitoring (EPM) Department and one official utility vehicle (a Toyota Hilux pickup van) were burnt,” INEC’s National Commissioner Festus Okoye said in a statement hours after the incident.
“This is the third attack on the Commission’s facilities in Imo State in less than two weeks following the earlier attacks on our Orlu LGA office on Thursday 1st December 2022 and Oru West LGA office on Sunday 4th December 2022.”