Militants raided a police station in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday, killing four policemen, and also targeted a camp for displaced persons, the force said as the country experiences a surge in jihadist violence.

Police said "terrorists suspected to be members of Boko Haram/ISWAP attacked the Nganzai Divisional Police Headquarters in an attempt to overrun the town", located less than 100 kilometres north of Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Borno state.

Just over two weeks ago, triple suicide bombers tore through a busy market and other areas in Maiduguri, killing at least 23 people, in one of the deadliest attacks in the city in years.

Officers on duty in Saturday's incident "engaged the attackers in a fierce gun battle", a police spokesman said in a statement, but "four police personnel" died.

Another group of jihadists targeted a security post at the entrance of a camp hosting internally displaced persons in Damasak, near the border with Niger.

They killed a member of the local security volunteers and set about 20 thatched houses ablaze, police said.

In both attacks the police, military civilian volunteers "responded responded swiftly, repelled the attackers" said the police in a statement.

Fighters from Boko Haram and the rival Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) group have ramped up attacks on military, police and civilian targets as Africa's most populous country grapples with a long-running insurgency in recent months.

In Borno state, the epicentre of Nigeria's insurgency since Boko Haram's 2009 uprising, attacks from Boko Haram and ISWAP "significantly increased" last year, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a US-based monitor.