Gunmen shot dead a prominent opposition politician in Nigeria’s southwestern Ogun State, police said Tuesday, amid rising tensions ahead of general elections next year.
“Chief Dipo Dina was killed Monday night in Ota by unknown gunmen who ambushed his vehicle,” a senior police officer told AFP.
“We are still investigating the circumstances of his death,” he said.
Dina, who like many politicians held the traditional title of chief, was the opposition Action Congress’s (AC) gubernatorial candidate in a disputed April 2007 poll.
Tensions have been rising as the country prepares for general elections in 2011.
Several prominent politicians, including a justice minister and two gubernatorial candidates, have been murdered by unidentified gunmen in recent years and police have failed to prosecute the killers.
A gubernatorial poll in southern Anambra State on February 6 is being seen as a bellwether for next year’s election.
Vice President Goodluck Jonathan ordered the security agencies to find the killers.
“The vice president views this incident seriously and has directed the police in concert with the other intelligence agencies to find and arrest the killers of Dina without delay,” his office said in a statement.
The AC said Tuesday that Dina’s killing was “the latest indication of a rising culture of intolerance and insecurity in the country… and signals a dangerous trend that must be curbed urgently.”
“A nation that is not at war and yet loses a high number of its prominent and non-prominent citizens to senseless killings cannot and should not expect to be taken seriously by civilised nations,” AC spokesman Lai Mohammed said.
“This madness must stop,” he said.