BORNO State Deputy Governor said on Tuesday afternoon that 18 people were killed in an attack at a local market in the village of Dambo in the state.
Mustapha said that he received the information from the village chief, Abba Ahmed, who told him that the attack happened late on Monday.
According to the deputy governor, the violence started after the local market banned a group of hunters from selling “bush meat” from slaughtered monkeys and other creatures. Local Muslims decline to eat it because of their religious convictions.
Security officials on Monday had previously said no one was killed in the attack. However, the latest report appear to contravene the previous ones.
Damboa, in a rural part of the state, is difficult to reach.
The latest incident comes after last weekend’s attack on the influential Emir of Kano, whose personal driver and guards were killed in violent attack on his convoy as he returned to his palace grounds on Saturday afternoon.
It is believed that the extremist Islamic group, Boko Haram, was behind the attack on the Emir, who has since been flown out, along with two of his sons, in the United Kingdom for medical attention.
Kano, like Maiduguri, has been in the eye of the man-made storm of intolerant violence since Boko Haram intensified its insurgency in the north of the country about two years ago, killing over 600 innocent citizens in its daredevil attacks so far.