Police in Nigeria have discovered the severed head of a state legislator who went missing last week in the southeastern state of Ambara, where the government accuses separatists of killings and kidnappings, police said on Sunday.
The Southeast, the homeland of the Igbo ethnic group, is agitating for separation from the rest of Nigeria, and the Banned Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group is leading those calls.
Anambra State Police Tochukwu Ikenga said Okechukwu Okoye, an MLA in the Anambra state assembly, and his aide went missing on May 15. His head was found Saturday night in a park in the Nenevi South local government area.
“The MLA was killed. His head was found on the side of Nanobi Road. There is no suspect in custody yet,” Ikenga said.
The governor of Anambra state has placed a reward of one crore naira ($24,000) for information on the killers.
Earlier this month, gunmen killed and beheaded two soldiers in neighboring Imo state. The government blamed the IPOB, which denied the allegation.
Violence in the southeast is another layer of insecurity in Nigeria, where ransom kidnappings are common in the northwest and an Islamic insurgency in the country’s northeast for more than a decade.
Amnesty International said last August that Nigerian security forces killed at least 115 people in the southeast in the first eight months of 2021 and arbitrarily arrested or tortured several others. The government did not comment.
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