BY Taiwo George
Leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, has dismissed the news of his death, AFP is reporting.
The news agency said it was in the possession of a 36-minute video footage released by Shekau, who said: “Here I am, alive. I will only die the day Allah takes my breath. I am running our… Islamic caliphate and administering sharia punishments.”
The new 36-minute video showed Shekau, in combat fatigues and black rubber boots, standing on the back of a pick-up truck and firing an anti-aircraft gun into the air.
Standing in front of three camouflaged vans and flanked by four heavily-armed, masked fighters, he spoke for 16 minutes in Arabic and the Hausa language widely spoken in northern Nigeria.
Heavily-bearded, he appeared to be the same the figure in previous clips and also said the military’s claim that he was dead was propaganda.
“Nothing will kill me until my days are over… I’m still alive. Some people asked you if Shekau has two souls. No, I have one soul, by Allah,” he said.
“It is propaganda that is prevalent. I have one soul. I’m an Islamic student. I’m the Islamic student whose seminary you burnt… I’m not dead.
“We are running our caliphate, our Islamic caliphate. We follow the Koran… We now practise the injunctions of the Koran in the land of Allah.”
The group also claimed to have shot down a Nigerian air force jet that went missing three weeks ago.
The Nigerian army had said that a high-ranking insurgent who posed as Shekau had been killed in an operation carried out in Konduga, a community in Borno state.
The authorities showed pictures as evidence of the death of Shekau’s double.
The video obtained by AFP on Thursday is not the first used by Boko Haram to debunk reports of the death of its leader.
On two previous occasions, in August 2009 and June 2013, the sect released videos to deny such reports.
A military source told TheCable in September that Shekau was killed more than a year ago and was only being impersonated, while the military said the impersonator was using the aliases, Bashir Mohammed, Isa Damsaka and Abacha Abdullahi Geidam.
“The real Shekau was killed on or about June 19, 2013, as the Nigerian government was concluding a peace deal with Boko Haram. He died in the Sambisa forest as a result of gunshot wounds he received in an encounter with the JTF,” the military source said.
Defence spokesman, Major-General Chris Olukolade, also buttressed this in a press conference on September 24, saying the military is winning the war against insurgency.
On Shekau and his impersonator, Olukolade told the media: “In the course of those encounters, one Mohammed Bashir who has been acting or posing on videos as the deceased Abubakar Shekau, the eccentric character known as leader of the group, died.
“Inhabitants of the community who were victims of terrorists activities corroborated information on the identity of Bashir Mohammed alias Abubakar Shekau, alias Abacha Abdullahi Geidam alias Damasack etc.”
The false Shekau has made major pronouncements on behalf of the sect, including owning up to the kidnap of more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno state, in the night of April 14, 2014.
He also recently pronounced Islamic caliphate in some parts of Borno.
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