Unknown gunmen on Monday night stormed the residence of Professor Godswill Obioma, strangling him in what his wife suspected to be an assassination.

“The assassins came in and killed him and left without taking anything,” Elizabeth Obioma told Peoples Gazette by telephone on Tuesday morning.

Weeping profusely, Mrs Obioma said her husband had just returned to Minna from a trip to Abuja when the armed men, lurking in his compound, descended on him and strangled him.

A police spokesman did not immediately return a request seeking comments about the development.

Mr Obioma has been facing attempts to remove him from office as the head of NECO, a prominent examination body run by the Nigerian government.

Mr Obioma, 67, was appointed head of NECO barely a year ago on May 14, 2020. He hailed from Abia in Nigeria’s Igbo-dominated South-East region.

The incident came barely a day after Ahmed Gulak, a top politician of the ruling APC, was gunned down in Owerri, raising widespread fears of insecurity.