'Dead' Boko Haram Leader Re-Emerges in New Video

Abuja / Maiduguri — Deputy leader of the Boko Haram sect who the police said they killed in Maiduguri during last year's clashes has re-emerged in a new video clip, saying he has assumed command of the group and would continue to propagate its anti-Western education ideology.

Imam Abubakar Shekau was the second-in-command to Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed by the police in July last year after days of fighting between security forces and the sect's followers. The police said last year that Shekau was shot dead in the clashes.

But a 25-minute video clip, shot on April 19 and obtained by Daily Trust in Abuja during the week, showed Shekau answering questions from a journalist at his hideout believed to be in Maiduguri.

In the clip, Shekau is seen wearing a head dress, with an AK-47 gun and a stack of religious books behind him. People who know Shekau very well identified him in a still image captured from the video clip.

Proclaiming himself as leader of the sect, Shekau said during the interview that with the death of the former leader, he "being the deputy (to Yusuf), stepped in and assumed leadership to continue in the pursuit of religious knowledge."

However, the police in Maiduguri insisted on Tuesday that Shekau is dead.

Borno State Commissioner of Police Ibrahim Abdu told our reporter that information available to the police indicated that both leaders of the sect -Yusuf and Shekau -have been killed.

"I have not seen the clip and I cannot comment on what I have not seen. (But) to the best of my knowledge, Shekau and Mohammed Yusuf are dead. If anybody can identify them and tell us their location, we are ready to act. But to us they are dead, if they are alive, they are wanted persons," Abdu said.

There had been no conclusive evidence of the claim that Shekau was killed in the Boko Haram clashes, unlike the case of Mohammed Yusuf, whose death was confirmed because of the wide circulation of the photo of his dead body.

Initial speculations were that Shekau was killed at the sect's Ibn Taimiyya enclave, when soldiers engaged the members in a gun battle on the second day of the clashes. But there were rumours later that the second-in-command had escaped out of the state.

Asked to explain how he survived the onslaught by security forces during the 4-day clashes, Shekau said in the video clip that he was shot in the thigh but was rescued by "fellow believers and protected by Allah."

He argued that his men were not the first to attack security agencies, but that they retaliated in self defence after they were hit. He claimed that during the Boko Haram clashes, only a few of his men were killed and that the major casualties were mere passersby, mad people and young hawkers.

Shekau vowed to retaliate for the killings of his followers in Maiduguri and other places.

Asked why they use guns even though the guns were also products of Western education, he said, "Guns are not products of boko... we also can make guns, we even made and used guns."

On where his sect gets weaponry, Shekau said, "We get them from where we get them. God said we should get them (weapons), the Holy Prophet said we should get them."

He insisted that the pursuit of Western education is prohibited, and that his group would continue to propagate the Boko Haram ideology.

"What we are saying is that it is not permissible to seek for boko (Western education) under the prevailing system and given the un-Islamic things introduced in boko," he said.

"We are not fighting Western education itself, what we are opposed to are the various un-Islamic things slotted into it and the system upon which the study of Western education is rested. These are the reasons why we say it's not permissible to study it."

The video clip was shot by a journalist, who told Daily Trust that he sought to interview Shekau through some followers in Maiduguri. They then arranged and picked him up at night on April 19 at a location within the city, blindfolded and drove him to a hideout.

The journalist said the place should be in Maiduguri because the drive took just about an hour and did not feel like a movement out of the city. He said he was taken into a house and to a pre-set stage for the interview in a room. He also said Shekau had armed guards with him.

Shekau was, besides being a second-in-command of the sect, the most influential and feared member of the Boko Haram group.

By Ndahi MARAMA, Maiduguri
BORNO state Police command yesterday rejected a fresh video clip purportedly showing Deputy Leader of the Boko Haram Islamic sect, Abubakar Shekau, said to have been killed during the last year’s fight in July between security forces and the sect’s followers in Maiduguri.

The state’s Police Commissioner, Ibrahim Abdu, who was reacting to journalists in an interview on a publication in one of the national daily (not Vnaguard), over the purported re-emergence of Shekau in a fresh video clip, described the footage as computer manipulation’’.

Abdu insisted that both the sect’s Leader Mohammed Yusuf and his second-in-command were killed during the mayhem and that it would amount to total falsehood for some one to claim that one of them was still alive.

‘‘At this era of computer, information and communication technology when impossible things are now made possible, I would be disappointed for one to believe the content of the purported video clip’’, he declared. Adding that, anybody who believes that Shekau is still alive should tell the police his whereabout.

The CP argued that authentic evidence before the police proved that both leaders of the sec have been killed during shoot out with security operatives and that their corpses were later discovered.

The commissioner noted that although he was yet to watch the clip, but emphasized that as far as the command was concerned, Shekau is dead.

He challenged any individual or groups that were not convinced, to alert police on his hideout so that he could be nabbed as was wanted person.

The police chief enjoined the general public to disregard the entire issue and go about their normal businesses, assuring that government has put effective security machineries to guarantee their safety as stop and search were mounted at strategic locations.

On the two suspected Boko Haram flags which were mounted in Jere and infront the Shehu’s Palace within the metropolis, CP Abdul said that already the police have uprooted the flags, even as he stated that the alleged flags were mere rags with some Arabic inscriptions which are far different from the Boko Haram flags which were recovered by the security agencies during the last year’s insurgency.

It would be recalled that the residence of Maiduguri were disturbed on hearing that some suspected Boko Haram (western education is sin) who survived the last year battle were making plans to struck again this month (July) to mark their one year anniversary.

I will advise the Chief Police officer in charge not to take this matter lightly by dismissing it,It was the same police force that told us Ribadu was not in the Country to pay tribute to the Late Gani (SAN).Even if it is a lie ,there must be something cooking somewhere.