Some 300 gunmen stormed a mostly Christian village in central Nigeria on Sunday, killing five people and burning scores of homes, police said.

The early morning attack targeted the village of Kuka in Plateau state, which roughly falls on the dividing line between Nigeria's mainly Christian south and predominately Muslim north.

Suspected Boko Haram Islamists have killed 12 people in Nigeria's restive northeast, burning homes and stealing cars in an area repeatedly attacked by the insurgent group, police and residents said Saturday.

The attack in the Sandiya village happened Thursday in Borno state, Boko Haram's stronghold, but details were slow to emerge given the communication shutdown in the area.

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has been given the all clear to travel after falling ill while on an official visit to London, his spokesman said Saturday.

Jonathan was forced to skip a meeting Thursday with an investment advisory group after "the sudden onset of several abdominal pains," Reuben Abati said in a statement.

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan received unplanned medical treatment in London on Thursday after he "became indisposed" and was forced to miss a scheduled meeting, his spokesman said.

"In the course of his ongoing visit to London for a meeting of Nigeria's Honorary International Investors' Council, President Goodluck Jonathan became indisposed and could not be present at the opening of the meeting today," said Reuben Abati.

Lawmakers in Nigeria's lower house on Tuesday unanimously backed extending the state of emergency in the country's northeast where Islamists are waging a brutal insurgency, giving the measure final approval.

President Goodluck Jonathan had on November 6 asked for a six-month extension of emergency powers in the states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, where Boko Haram militants have carried out waves of attacks.

Zaria, in northern Nigeria, has not been known as an Islamist stronghold but revelations that a French engineer was kept hostage there by militants before dramatically escaping have shocked locals.

Francis Collomp managed to flee on Saturday while his captors were praying, walking four to five kilometers (2.5 to three miles) before flagging down a motorcycle taxi that took him to a nearby police station.

Nigerian troops killed two suspected Boko Haram Islamist insurgents in a shootout in the northern city of Kano on Tuesday, seizing assault rifles and ammunition, a military spokesman said.

The clash followed the arrest of two armed insurgents in nearby Katsina state on Monday, said Captain Ikedichi Iweha in a statement.

A French engineer abducted by Islamist militants in Nigeria and held for 11 months arrived back in France on Monday after managing to escape his kidnappers.

A plane carrying the "weakened" 63-year-old Francis Collomp, accompanied by France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, landed early Monday at a military airport outside Paris.

A French engineer taken hostage by Islamist militants in Nigeria, Francis Collomp, has been freed after nearly a year in captivity, President Francois Hollande said on Sunday.

In a statement, Hollande expressed thanks to Nigerian authorities for helping to secure the release of 63-year-old Collomp, but provided no other details of how he was freed.

Nigeria's army has killed 20 suspected members of Boko Haram in a renewed offensive against the Islamist insurgency, a military spokesman said Saturday.

"In the late hours of Friday November 15, 2013, troops ... launched an offensive operation along Gwoza - Bita Damboa Road, where Boko Haram insurgents were flushed out," said Mohammad Dole, an army regional spokesman.