As the country prepares for a series of elections early next year, Nigeria’s electoral commission on Friday suspended voter registration in most portions of oil-producing Imo state after an election officer was shot dead by unknown assailants.
Armed groups have been torching electoral offices and police stations in states across the southeast since last year, which the government blames on the banned separatist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). IPOB disputes the allegations.
Following the incident on Thursday, voter registration was suspended at 54 polling stations and three local government areas in Imo state, according to a statement from the Independent Electoral Commission of Nigeria’s spokesman Festus Okoye.
Voter registration is underway across Nigeria ahead of next year’s elections, which will elect a new parliament and president in February (with Muhammadu Buhari stepping down after serving two straight four-year terms as allowed by the constitution), as well as state governors in March.
However, the country is beset by instability, as seen by gun attacks and kidnappings in the northwest, a simmering Islamist insurgency in the northeast, and armed groups attacking government institutions in the southeast.
Separatist parties such as IPOB advocate for the independence of southern Nigeria, the Igbo ethnic group’s homeland.
In 1967, the region attempted to separate under the name Republic of Biafra, resulting in a three-year civil war that killed over a million people, most of whom died of starvation.
Source: Reuters
