Bebe Akinboade
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NOTORIOUS LEADER, SHEKAU MISSING IN NEW BOKO HARAM VIDEO

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Notorious
Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, did not feature in a new 10-minute Boko
Haram video which was posted Tuesday on video-sharing website, YouTube, further
stirring debate that he may have been killed in the renewed military offensive
against the terrorist group by Nigerian troops and the multi-regional task force,
made up of troops from Cameroun, Chad and Niger. Shekau has featured
prominently in most of the group’s videos over the last three years.
Nigeria’s
military has previously claimed to have killed him only for him then to pop up
on another video. The authorities have explained such appearances away by
saying that the role of “Shekau” was filled by various lookalike insurgents.

In the
video, an unidentified speaker, his face obscured by a headscarf, rejected
claims from Nigeria’s military that the Boko Haram has been routed by the
four-nation offensive. Instead it called Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger “the
lying coalition partners.”
“Most of our
territory is still under our control,” said the speaker.
The video
bears the logo “Islamic State in West Africa” and follows the Nigerian
militants’ pledge of allegiance in an audio message in March to the IS group,
that has overrun large parts of Syria and Iraq, the AFP reported.
The speaker
in the new message appears in front of two pick-up trucks, with four other
gunmen visible in the background. He speaks in the Hausa language that is
dominant in northern Nigeria with Arabic and English subtitles shown below. An
AK-47 rifle rests on his chest as he seeks to rebuke the claims of successes
made in recent weeks by the coalition.
“The armies
claim through the media that they captured our towns and that they assaulted
Sambisa (forest) and defeated us,” he said, referring to the bushland area in
Nigeria’s northeast Borno state that has been an Islamist stronghold.
“I swear by
Allah that I am talking right now from Sambisa… Here in Sambisa you can travel
more than four to five hours under the black flag of Islam by car or by
motorbike.”
“We are
uncountable in Sambisa. We are thousands of Mujahedeen here,” he further said,
dismissing claims of the insurgents’ defeat as “false propaganda”.
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