Nigeria: The Many Lives of Abubakar Shekau
September 30, 2014
By Max Borowski
Nigeria’s army has reported several successes in the battle against Islamist group Boko Haram. Observers are skeptical and also doubt claims that the group’s leader has been killed – not for the first time.
[caption id="attachment_12464" align="alignleft" width="290"] Shekau, but which one?[/caption]
The Nigerian army attracted considerable attention with its recent claims of not one but several military successes against Islamist terror group Boko Haram. The Islamists had been advancing unopposed for months, swallowing up more and more areas into their self-proclaimed caliphate, but now the army says they have forced them back with a decisive strike. Several hundred fighters had surrendered to the army, said military spokesman Chris Olukolade on Wednesday (24.09.2014). In addition “a certain Mohammed Bashir who had posed in various videos as the group’s leader Abubakar Shekau, died in that operation.”
Last year the army announced Shekau had been killed in an exchange of fire. However the self-proclaimed imam then made an appearance in several new video messages.
The army could not prove that Shekau was really dead – but neither could Boko Haram remove doubts that he had been impersonated by a double in the videos.
In Nigeria the fresh news of Shekau’s death was met with great skepticism. “So he’s dead again,” was the comment by Hamid Ali, a retired army colonel. “I wonder just how many lives he has.”
But even if he has really been killed this time, that is not the issue, Nigerian analyst Mack Mijinyana said in an interview with DW. There was no reason to hope that Boko Haram would become less violent. He recalled the confirmed death of the group’s founder, Mohammed Yousuf, in 2009. “They thought his death was the end of Boko Haram but what we saw after that was outrageous, beyond our imagination.”
Nkemnji Global Tech
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