Nigerian militants killed at least 45 people in an attack on the northeastern village of Azaya Kura in Borno state as President Goodluck Jonathan said the government of Africa’s largest economy was improving security.

Gunmen suspected of belonging to the Boko Haram Islamist group attacked and destroyed half the village on Nov. 19, with many people who fled the violence still missing, said Shettima Lawan, the chairman of the Mafa local government area, who visited Azaya Kura yesterday.

“I wish to appeal to the federal government to take urgent steps and rescue our people from imminent extinction,” Lawan told reporters in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. “How can some people be so wicked to kill innocent people, 45 people at once without any confrontation?”

Jonathan has asked parliament to extend emergency rule in Borno and two other northeastern states beset by an insurgency that he says has killed 13,000 since 2009. Police fired tear gas yesterday at opposition lawmakers attempting to enter the House of Representatives in the capital, Abuja, as they returned to vote on the president’s request.

“We are improving on security,” Jonathan, 57, said today in London, according to a e-mailed statement from office. “We are steadily pushing them back. The impression being created by sections of the media that the situation is worsening is not true. I can assure you that it will never get worse.”

Violent Elections

Jonathan announced last week he will seek re-election as the ruling People’s Democratic Party’s candidate in a February vote, promising to end the five-year rebellion. Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates to “Western education is a sin” in the Hausa language, is fighting to establish Shariah, or Islamic law, in Africa’s most populous nation of more than 170 million.

Nigeria is heading toward an increasingly violent and volatile election, Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in a report today. The the vote is at risk of being polarized as the opposition All Progressives Congress party candidates are Muslim northerners, while Jonathan is a Christian from the oil producing southern Niger River delta region.

“As in 2011, clashes could erupt in some northern states if the APC, whose frontrunners are all northerners, loses the polls,” according to the report. “There is similarly a high risk of violence if the PDP loses the presidency, particularly in the Niger Delta.”