The family of Chief Victor Oyibo Chukwu, the assassinated Labour Party (LP) candidate for the 2023 Enugu East Senate race, has claimed that their brilliant son was killed because of his and the Labour Party’s popularity in Enugu State and throughout the nation.
Speaking to reporters in Enugu on behalf of the Chukwu family, Prof. Arthur Chukwu, Head of the Department of Professional Ethics and Skills at the Nigerian Law School, Yola Campus, denounced the killings and lamented the fact that a sacrilege of this magnitude had never before occurred in the political history of Enugu State.
In addition to being a seasoned politician on the national stage, Chukwu noted that their late son, a senior lawyer, served as the president of the Nigerian Bar Association in Oji River from 2017 to 2019. He also stated that his professional colleagues can attest to his courage, wisdom, tenacity, vision, and uncanny organisational skills.
He also recounted how their honourable son had revealed to a few people that he was being followed by members of the Ebeano Political Group based on reliable intelligence.
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The degree of hatred and intolerance necessary for someone to plot and carry out such an atrocity against innocent people, whose only transgression was choosing to exercise their right to participate in the nation’s political process, according to Prof. Chukwu, is unfathomable.
Chukwu said: “In the morning of Wednesday, February 22, 2022, the very day he was killed, the late Senatorial candidate told some persons that he was going to write a petition to the security and intelligence agencies in Enugu State on the plans to eliminate him, so that the agencies could investigate the persons involved and nip their evil plans in the bud.
“The threat to his life spiked when he directed his lawyer, Mr. Chukwudi Igwe, to file a suit in the Federal High Court in Abuja challenging the legal status of the participation of a former Enugu State Governor, Dr. Chimaraoke Nnamani, as the PDP candidate in the Enugu East Senatorial Zone since he has been expelled from his party. The Nigerian Constitution provides that only candidates sponsored by political parties can contest in an election.”
“It was not just Chief Chukwu they stopped, but the entire Enugu East Senatorial Zone whose people have for several years been yearning for effective representation in the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and, by extension, good governance”.
“We find it curious that a whole two days after Chief Chukwu, the Owelle of Amuri, a member of the Constituent Assembly in Abuja and the National Auditor of the Social Democratic Party in the Third Republic was murdered in the most brutal way, the Enugu State Government has not deemed it important to condemn the killing and the killing of his PA; nor has any of its officials visited the Chukwu family even here in Enugu City”.
“Yet, His Excellency, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State claims that his greatest legacy since his assumption of office almost eight years ago is an atmosphere of peace,” he stated.
Recall that the late Chukwu was murdered on February 22, 2023, at Amechi, Uwani, in the Enugu South local council area by daredevil assassins, while en route from a meeting with family members in the Enugu East zone. They also murdered and set ablaze Mr. Sunday Igwesi, his personal assistant, who was travelling with him.
