By Chinonso Alozie

Owerri- Ahead of this week, Saturday’s House of Assembly elections unidentified gunmen on Tuesday set ablaze the houses, and vehicles of the state assembly candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the Okigwe state constituency, Ifeanyi Ozoemena, at Umuokparaoha, Umulolo community in the Okigwe council area of Imo state.

Eyewitnesses who disclosed this to newsmen in Owerri said the gunmen attacked the houses with explosives at about 1:30 pm.

On the reason for the attack, they claimed to be politically motivated and accused a group of political thugs whose assignment they said had been to attack the candidates of political parties in the area.

They also boosted that Ozoemena was attacked to cut down his political fortunes ahead of this week’s Saturday elections.

On the level of the attack, they said the PDP candidate family members were able to escape.

Before the presidential/National Assembly elections, it was gathered that the burning of houses, and killings, have become almost a daily occurrence in the Okigwe local government area. Mostly affected were candidates of political parties.

At the time of filing this report, the Imo State Police Command was yet to respond to the matter.

But the PDP, state Publicity Secretary, Collins Opurozor, confirmed the incident s d: “It is part of the continued attack on our candidates, in Imo state, just like we have been saying it for the world to hear us. Many of our House of Representatives candidates were attacked, and Senators and their houses were burnt.”