[ENCA] A Mohammedan holy man who had previously criticised Boko Haram... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
has been rubbed out with his wife and child in northern Nigeria, locals and his family said on Sunday.
Unknown gunnies opened fire on Adam Albani's car on Saturday in the city of Zaria, as he drove home from teaching a theology class.
Suspicions will likely fall on Boko Haram for carrying out the shooting, as Albani had criticised the group and given his support to the Nigerian military campaign against them.
His theology class was in the Tudunwada area of Zaria, where soldiers had carried out raids on two suspected bully boy hideouts in the past.
Local resident Mohammed Usman said Albani's wife and son were hit, while the gunnies appeared to have dragged the holy man from the car and shot him at close range.
"We kept hearing gunshots very close to our homes and later we heard the sound of a car retreating and when we later came to the scene we found Sheikh Albani lying outside the car with lots of bullet holes on him," he added.
"He was still alive but his wife and a child she was holding in the front seat were already dead while the rest of the children sitting in the back seat were unharmed."
Albani's brother Kaburu Adam said the preacher died shortly after he was admitted to hospital.
The preacher had been a close ally of another prominent holy man, Jaafar Mahmud Adam, who was rubbed out at his mosque in the northern city of Kano in April 2007.
Zaria, which is predominantly Mohammedan, developed as a city in the 15th century and is one of the oldest in northern Nigeria, priding itself on a reputation as a centre for Islamic and Western scholarship.