Kano - Suspected Boko Haram gunmen shot dead a teacher in a north-east Nigerian village on the border with Chad, police and residents said on Tuesday.
The attackers stormed a house late on Monday, where the head of a primary school lived, killing him and wounding another man, his housemate who was a cook in another school, locals said.
“We received report of an attack in Wulgo village by some gunmen in which one person was killed and another one seriously wounded,” confirmed Borno state police commissioner Lawan Tanko.
“The attackers, whom we believe to be members of Boko Haram, broke into the home of the two men... and opened fire on them, killing the teacher and injuring his house mate,” said Wulgo resident Abba Kaka.
“They did not take anything from their victims, which ruled out the possibility of armed robbery.”
Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sin” in the local Hausa language, has been notorious for attacking public schools and teachers since it began its insurgency in 2009.
The militants, considered an international terrorist group by the United States, want to create an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.
Thousands of people, many of them civilians, have lost their lives in the insurgency and emergency rule was imposed in Borno and two neighbouring states last May.
The military has claimed the special measures have forced Boko Haram out of urban centres into remoter, border regions, although attacks have continued.
Last month, Boko Haram gunmen were blamed for killing schoolteachers and their families in an attack on a military barracks housing a secondary school in the Borno town of Bama, near the Cameroon border.
Nigerian schools in the frontier region with Niger, Cameroon and Chad have been forced to close since the beginning of last year when Boko Haram attacked communities in the region.
Sapa-AFP