Unknown persons have set fire to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Igboeze North local government in Enugu, destroying vital electoral documents.

A statement from INEC said the incident occurred around 11:48 p.m. on Sunday evening, following a report from Emeka Ononamadu, its Enugu resident electoral commissioner.

The electoral commission stated that “748 ballot boxes, 240 voting cubicles and office furniture and equipment were destroyed in spite of the best effort of the Enugu state Fire Service deployed from Nsukka.”

INEC further said it had yet to ascertain the status of the voter registration machines and uncollected Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) stored in the facility’s fireproof cabinet.

Reacting to the arson, Enugu state police spokesperson, Daniel Ndukwe, said the “fire observed to have started from the back of the building, was put out by Police Operatives that swiftly mobilised to the scene on receipt of the information,” to avert further damages.

The statement also noted that police commissioner Abubakar Lawal has ordered the state CID to conduct a thorough investigation to unravel the cause of the inferno.

This will not be the first time an INEC facility will be attacked in Enugu. Similar attacks have been recorded in Igboeze south and Udemu local government areas in May 2021.

The INEC headquarters in the state on May 16, 2021, had also suffered a similar attack.