Radical Islamic sect kills television journalist in Nigeria
Suspected Islamist militants has shot dead a reporter for the state-owned Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) in the country's northern town of Maiduguri.
Suspected Islamist militants has shot dead a reporter for the state-owned Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) in the country's northern town of Maiduguri.
The reporter, Zakariyya Isa was shot dead in front of his house while returning from a mosque, an eyewitness said.
A radical Islamist group, Boko Haram issued a statement recently threatening to attack journalists living in the northern part of the country that failed to report what it terms to be authentic stories about the sect.
Boko Haram sect wants to impose Islamic sharia system in the oil-rich African country with 150 million people equally distributed among Christians and Muslims.
The sect claimed responsibility for the bombing of the United Nation's headquarters in the country’s capital on August 26 which killed 23 people and injured more than 70.
It has been linked to al-Qaeda's franchise in the Maghreb, El-Shabab and recruits members in neighbouring Niger republic.
Its leader Yusuf was killed in 2006 by the Nigerian police after a confrontation with the members of the radical group that led to the killing of at least 800 people.
He said the gunmen had trailed the reporter, who was a popular Hausa translator and newscaster with the Maiduguri office of NTA, to his house, a few metres from the mosque before opening fire on him.
Muhammed Musa, a manager with NTA, said: "I was called and told that one of my employees had been shot dead."
The attack happened in the northern city of Maiduguri, which has been hit by a string of deadly bomb and gun attacks attributed to Boko Haram.
While most of its attacks have occurred in Nigeria's northeast, Boko Haram also claimed responsibility for the August 26 bomb blast at UN headquarters in Abuja that killed at least 23 people.