BAUCHI, Nigeria, May 20 (Reuters) - Nigerian police shot and killed two pupils on Wednesday at a high school in northeastern Bauchi state after they were called to quell a violent protest over examinations, witnesses and officials said.
Rights groups say Nigeria's poorly-trained and low-paid police have often carried out extra-judicial killings with impunity, a decade after the country returned to democracy following nearly 30 unbroken years of military rule.
Students of the Waya Makafi Secondary School in Bauchi, the state capital, began protesting after alleging their head teacher had replaced the names of 300 pupils registered for national exam council (NECO) exams with external candidates.
School head teachers in Africa's most populous country are charged virtually every year with accepting bribes to enrol external candidates for exams, depriving internal candidates of the opportunity to gain high school qualifications.
Bauchi state Commissioner for Education Yusuf Gar said the school had been shut down indefinitely and a committee set up to probe the violence.
"I sympathise with the families of the two students that were killed in the riot," Gar said.
The students had set ablaze some school buildings and the head teacher's car before the police came to restore order.
Bauchi commissioner of police Atiku Kafur said only one pupil was killed and that it was not clear if he was shot by police. (Reporting by Ardo Hazzad; Writing by Tume Ahemba; Editing by Nick Tattersall)
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