The Labour Party (LP) senatorial candidate for Ebonyi South District has been abducted by individuals allegedly working for the Ebubeagu Security Network.
On his way to his home in Abakaliki on Saturday morning, the victim, Linus Okorie, was kidnapped.
This was revealed in a statement released on Sunday by David Ogbonna, a member of the Linus Okorie CaringHeart Foundation team.
Mr. Okorie served in the House of Representatives in the past.
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He served as the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) representative for Ohaozara/Onicha/Ivo Federal Constituency from 2011 to 2019.
In August, Mr. Okorie left the PDP for the LP in order to pursue his 2023 senatorial aspirations.
He would be running for the Senate seat against Dave Umahi, whose term as governor of Ebonyi State would end the following year.
According to Mr. Ogbonna, the LP candidate was targeted by Ebubeagu agents on the direction of the state’s local government chairman.
The material that is now available “confirms that he (Okorie) had been badly tortured to the point of being close to death, made nude, and had photographs of him taken by his abductors,” he added.
According to information they have, the kidnappers’ “motivation is to torture him to death and dump his body at the Ebonyi River,” the man claimed.
According to Mr. Ogbonna, “We think that his kidnappers may have kept his half-dead body at Old Government House where the prior activities of the charged militia group typically take place.”
According to sources, the LP candidate’s advisers and supporters would be “hunted down starting on Monday and put in a similar predicament,” he claimed.
We urge the security services to act quickly to resolve this crisis, free Hon Linus from his captors, and put those responsible to justice, the speaker continued.
The former lawmaker’s wife, Lilian, also announced Mr Okorie’s abduction in a live video on her Facebook page on Sunday.
She claimed that her husband was abducted by members of Ebubeagu Security Network, a South-east security outfit backed by Ebonyi State Government.
Mrs Okorie, who is in the United States for her master’s degree programme, said her husband was not responding to her calls.
She claimed that she was contacted by members of the Ebubeagu operatives informing her they have abducted her husband.
She said that the state governor, Mr. Umahi, hired the security company to carry out the kidnapping.
I just learned that the governor had dispatched Ebubeagu to abduct my husband, Hon. Linus Okorie. He has been taken since yesterday night (Saturday),” she sobbed.
Uchenna Orji, the state’s commissioner for information, and Francis Nwaze, the governor’s media adviser, did not return calls and texts asking for their reactions to the claim.
The Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Kenneth Ugbala, advised people blaming the governor for the LP candidate’s kidnapping to write to the government when reached on Monday for comment on the claim.
According to him, the family should formally write to the Ebonyi State Government through his office if the accusation is true.
“I can only react to something that I perceive to be SSG. SSG doesn’t reply to posts on social media, Mr. Ugbala continued.
The governors of the five states in the South-east formed Ebubeagu in 2021 to aid in the battle against insecurity in the area, which had seen violent attacks attributed to the Indigenous People of Biafra’s (IPB) struggle for their own country.
The security company has been charged in the area with extrajudicial executions.
Chris Anyanwu, the Ebonyi State police spokesperson, promised a comment on the event.
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