Police in northern Nigeria say they have shot and killed a man attempting to drive a car bomb into a local police headquarters.

Borno State Police Commissioner Simeon Midenda says the guards killed the man Monday as he tried to force his way into police headquarters in the city of Maiduguri while a recruitment drive was underway.

He says the vehicle the man was driving was loaded with several cylinders of gunpowder and gasoline.

Police blamed the attempted attack on Boko Haram, a radical Islamist sect considered responsible for a string of deadly bombings and killings in Maiduguri. Most of the attacks have targeted police officers and other authority figures.

The group, whose name in the Hausa language means “Western education is a sin,” is calling for the stricter application of sharia, or Islamic law, in the area.