The Women Leader of the Edo State Chapter of Peter Obi National Support Group, Helen Taiwo Augustine, has reportedly been kidnapped by suspected gunmen on Wednesday, 7th December, 2022, in an attack alleged to be politically motivated.
The victim who is a grassroot mobilizer, and is credited with being the brain behind the party’s massive followership in the Edo North Senatorial District, was said to have been abducted at Ibillo in Akoko-Edo Local Government Area of the State.
This is coming few weeks after the Labour Party’s Women Leader in Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Victoria Chintex, was murdered.
Chintex was brutally shot dead on Monday, 28th of November, 2022 at her home, while her husband sustained gunshot wounds in the attack, and still hospitalised.
In Ebonyi State, the Labour Party Senatorial candidate for the Ebonyi South Zone and a former two term member of the Federal House of Representatives, Honourable Linus Okorie was hijacked by agents of the State government, tortured and dehumanised before being bundled to the Court which remanded him at the facility of the Nigeria Correctional Service in Abakaliki, where he spent over 40 days.
A few days ago, the restaurant of the Party's Women leader at a Local Government Area in President Mohammadu Buhari's home State, Katsina was attacked and set ablaze, without any item recovered.
There has been a surge in incidents of political violence has against supporters of opposition parties in several States of the country, with some Governors and top politicians fingered in the heightening tensions as the electioneering campaigns for the 2023 general elections build up.
In some States, the Governors have decreed several restrictions that tend to stifle the opposition from freely campaigning and canvassing for votes in their areas of control including the ban on the use of public facilities such as school premises, markets, motor parks and other public spaces for campaign rallies as well as the imposition of high charges for the display of campaign bill boards.
Just recently, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives and member of the ruling APC, Alhassan Ado Doguwa was seen on a video that has gone viral, threatening to beat up voters who didn’t vote for the APC in the coming polls.
The Nigerian Police and other security agencies are yet to invite the powerful Federal lawmaker of the ruling party, for questioning, not even the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has sanctioned him, according to the laws of the land.
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