MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in restive northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing a policeman and leading police to shoot dead two of the gunmen, police said.
Police commissioner Mohammed Abubakar said the gunmen attacked Sunday morning. He said police believe the attackers were members of a radical Muslim sect.
"One of our policemen was killed today, Sunday, while two members of the Boko Haram gunmen were also gunned down during an exchange of gunshots at the Pompomari Housing estate in Maiduguri," Abubakar said. "Our men have also killed two of the attackers whom we believe are members of the outlawed Boko Haram sect."
He said the attack has prompted police to staff each of the city's more than 25 checkpoints with at least 10 policemen.
Earlier Sunday, Abubakar said police in the northern Nigeria city had arrested 19 people over the slaying of the region's dominant gubernatorial candidate.
Modu Fannami Gubio was the Borno state candidate of the All Nigeria People's Party, a conservative party dominant in Nigeria's Muslim north, for the upcoming April elections. The party already controls politics in Borno state.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the killing. However, the attack mirrors the style used by Boko Haram. Abubakar blamed the group as well in his initial statement to reporters, but offered no evidence to show the group's involvement.
Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, has attacked churches and engineered a massive prison break in recent months. The group was thought to be vanquished in 2009, when Nigeria's military crushed its mosque into concrete shards, and its leader was arrested and died in police custody.
Suspected Boko Haram members have used motorcycle-riding gunmen to attack soldiers and police manning checkpoints throughout Borno state, as well as those who publicly oppose the group. But much remains murky about Boko Haram's intentions, and whether all the killings in Maiduguri are due to the group's reemergence.
The central Nigerian city of Jos has also suffered ethnic and religious violence, with at least 1,000 people killed there in 2010 and another 200 more have died within the last month, Human Rights Watch said.
The violence in central and northern Nigeria comes as President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian who took power after the death of Nigeria's elected Muslim leader, seeks the presidency. Some believe a northern candidate should stand in Jonathan's place to appease an unwritten power-sharing agreement in the oil-rich nation's ruling party.
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