PVCs and other materials are destroyed as thugs torch the INEC office in Ebonyi.

When some thugs set fire to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in the Izzi Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, many Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) and other items were destroyed.

“The incident occurred around 10.00 am when some unidentified persons set the entire building ablaze,” INEC’s National Commissioner & Chairman
Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said in a Sunday statement.

“Although no casualties resulted from the attack, the main building and all the movable and immovable items inside it were destroyed. These include 340 ballot boxes, 130 voting cubicles, 14 electric power generators, large water storage tanks, assorted office furniture and fixtures, and yet-to-be-determined quantities of Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs).”

He claimed that the most recent incident had been reported to security agencies, and that an investigation had already begun.

“Sadly, this is the third attack on our local government office in less than three weeks following similar attacks on our offices in Ogun and Osun states on 10th November 2022,” Okoye said.

Attacks on election offices have recently occurred in the nation’s southeast, where separatists are attempting to establish a breakaway state for the indigenous Igbo people, but they are less frequent in the southwest.

With the armed forces battling an insurgency in the northeast, heavily armed criminal gangs in the northwest and central states, and separatist agitators in the southeast, security will be a key issue in the election.

Nigeria, which has the largest economy in Africa, has also been severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, the effects of the Ukraine conflict, and its worst flooding in ten years, which has had an impact on farms and food production.

President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army commander who has served two terms in office, will step down in February, and Nigerians will go to the polls to choose his replacement.

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