A junior officer of the Nigerian Army has been killed by an irate mob in Maiduguri, following the fatal shooting of a civilian during a verbal altercation, Peoples Gazette has learnt.

Military sources told the Gazette on Tuesday morning that Private Mohammed Abdullahi was lynched to death along Baga road in the Borno State capital on Saturday night, shortly after the slain army personnel indiscriminately opened live rounds on four civilians during an argument in a retail shop.

An army memo disclosed that three of the civilians who received gunshot wounds were currently being treated at a specialist hospital in Maiduguri.

The internal army communication also noted that the soldier’s corpse had been evacuated to a morgue at 7 Divison Medical Services and Hospital (DMSH) in the Maimalari area of the capital city.

“Arrangement has also been made to recover the soldier’s weapon from the civilian police,” the memo added.

Private Abdullahi was recently deployed to the newly established “Operation Tura Takaibango” – an army formation involved in the fierce battle against jihadist group Boko Haram.

Army personnel, particularly those involved in counterinsurgency operations in the troubled northeast of Nigeria, have ramped up a deadly onslaught on unarmed civilians in recent times, raising concerns of a possible degradation of their mental health, in light of extensive deployment to the frontlines of the war against terrorism.