ABUJA, July 28 (Xinhua) -- There is no plan to order a temporary closure of the University of Maiduguri located in the largest city in Nigeria's northeast region in spite of an increase in attacks on the institution by terror group Boko Haram, the government said on Friday.
Mallam Adamu Adamu, the nation's minister of education, told reporters that in spite of the brutal murder of some staff of the higher learning institution and the general security situation in the region, the government did not want academic activities there to be truncated.
Rather, the government was willing to provide "necessary support" in ensuring that the security situation was under control, he said.
Five staff of the university were killed last Tuesday in an ambush by Boko Haram in a town near Maiduguri. That attack was the latest in the spate of attacks on the university community and its members in recent weeks.
According to Ibrahim Njodi, the university's vice chancellor, the deceased included two geologists, two technologists, and a driver.
Four other staff of the university were still missing as of Friday. They include two lecturers, one technologist, and a driver.
They were attacked during a collaborative work with the national oil corporation which embarked on oil exploration in the Lake Chad Basin early this week.
That aside, suicide attacks on the university had increased since early this year.
A professor who was the director of veterinary at the university was among five people killed in an attack on the main campus by Boko Haram in January.
Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 and displaced 2.3 million people in its attacks since 2009.
Nigeria's security forces have made a considerable gain on the Boko Haram front by dislodging the terror group's fighters from the Sambisa Forest, their last enclave in the country.
