“A group of gunmen stormed a beer parlour in Jajeri area last night and opened fire, killing four people and seriously wounding another,” Borno state police chief Simeon Midenda told AFP of the Monday attack.
There have been no arrests, but Midenda said “from all indications the attackers were from the Boko Haram sect”.
The sect, which has been blamed for scores of bomb blasts and shootings, mainly in the country’s northeast, has claimed responsibility for the August suicide bomb attack on UN headquarters in Abuja which killed 23 people.
In a separate incident, gunmen also shot an official of the city’s rickshaw operators outside his house on Monday night, Midenda said.
“Gunmen shot dead a spokesman of the tricycle taxi operators association,” said Midenda.
It was unclear why he was targeted, but rickshaws have become the main means of public transport in Maiduguri since July when the local government slapped a ban on motorcycles used as taxis.
Attacks in the city were mostly carried out by motorcycle-riding gunmen who shot their victims or tossed bombs at their targets and sped off.
Boko Haram, which launched an uprising in 2009 put down by a military assault, resurfaced last year targeting community leaders as well as members of the police, military and government.
The attacks have since intensified and become more sophisticated, including the use of bombs.