About six persons have been killed in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital in two separate incidents after gunmen attacked the city’s largest market, the military said on Friday.
The attacks occurred a day after President Goodluck Jonathan lifted a state of emergency in some states in Northern Nigeria.
Two people were killed on Thursday during a gunfight between suspected Boko Haram members and the military Joint Task Force (JTF) in Maiduguri, before gunmen killed four people at a nearby market, the JTF said.
“My men were patrolling around the market after it closed,” the Borno State Police Commissioner, Bala Hassan said after confirming the death toll from the attacks.
Many traders fled the market as the attack broke out in the market, while the management of the market locked up the six main entrances.
Elsewhere, the joint task force, JTF, clashed with gunmen suspected to be sect members in Gambouru ward of Maiduguri killing two persons.
Reports say that the clash happened when suspected gunmen attacked one of the military patrol vehicles near Kofa Biyu on Sir Kashim Ibrahim way.
Three killed in Kano
In Kano, west of Maiduguri, gunmen riding on motorcycles shot dead three people who were playing cards late on Thursday, the police said on Friday.
Boko Haram often targets people who are drinking alcohol or suspected of gambling.
The majority of the sect’s attacks are in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, where its insurgency began in 2009, although the threat has spread and bombings and shootings are common in cities across the north.
President Jonathan on Wednesday rescinded a state of emergency in several local government areas, including in Borno, ahead of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, which is observed by most of Nigeria’s estimated 80 million Muslims.
Curfews and movement restrictions were relaxed in several cities hit by recent violence.
