YOLA, Nigeria — Outnumbered and outgunned soldiers in northeast Nigeria abandoned checkpoints, leaving five villages and a town at the mercy of Islamist extremists who killed at least 33 people and firebombed a theological college in overnight attacks that lasted hours, survivors said Thursday.
The military, which regularly downplays death tolls, said six attackers, one soldier, and three civilians died.
On Tuesday, extremists killed 59 students at a school in Yobe state, hours after soldiers were inexplicably withdrawn from a roadblock set up to protect the institution.
The recent assaults in an Islamist uprising gripping the northeast of Africa’s biggest oil producer comes amid widespread criticism of military failures despite a nine-month-old state of emergency.
‘‘It is curious that under an emergency rule when security operatives are on red alert, this mayhem still persists,’’ Senate president David Mark said Wednesday in a statement calling the attacks an ‘‘open declaration of war.’’
A furious Yobe Governor Murtala Hammanyero Nyako suggested there must be collusion with the Boko Haram terrorist network.
‘‘Either this is controlled by unknown fellows, or unknown Boko Haram strategic commanders in the defense system, or it is being stage-managed,’’ he said. During an attack on an air force base last year, he said soldiers at nearby barracks did not respond until militants had destroyed all five aircraft.
Nigeria’s military has admitted arresting soldiers accused of aiding extremists. A senator also has been charged.
Brigadier General Chris Olukolade, the Defense Ministry spokesman, said Thursday the insurgents in Adamawa are believed to be the same men who attacked the school. He said they were escaping a new military offensive and trying to cross into Cameroon but ‘‘are still engaged in suicidal fighting . . . as troops close in on the die-hard ones among them.’’
Nyako said the attacks ridicule President Goodluck Jonathan’s insistence that the military is winning the war against Islamist militants.
Visiting African leaders condemned the attacks and expressed solidarity with Nigeria as it began official centenary celebrations Thursday marking the unification under British colonizers of the mainly Muslim north and majority Christian south.