Boko Haram Boss Denies He’s Been Replaced

“The global media reported that I am dead or I am sick and have lost influence in the affairs of religion”, Xinhua quoted the self-claimed Shekau as saying in the eight-minute Hausa-language recording. “And I will not die until my time appointed by Allah is up”, Shekau says in the message.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Monday, August 17, said that the rejuvenated Nigerian military has the capability to defeat insurgency in the country.

This Day said that after a lull in its aerial campaign against Boko Haram camps, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has carried out fresh air strikes targeted at militant bunkers in Sambisa forest.

Shekau’s absence in recent videos has also stoked speculations of his death or incapacitation.

“The stepped-up fight against Boko Haram has convinced Nigerians that, indeed, their military is getting its groove back, and can beat the three-month deadline set by President Muhammadu Buhari for Boko Haram to be defeated“.

Last week Chad’s President Idriss Deby said Shekau was wounded and had been replaced as Boko Haram’s leader.

Shekau was last publicly seen in March in a video in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS, since then he has not featured in Boko Haram’s most recent videos.

Cummings said such acts of mass violence helped the jihadist group to over-inflate the public perception of its strength while undermining the legitimacy of the government as a guarantor of security.

Boko Haram is seeking to carve out a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.

A vigilante source said four people were killed and seven injured when the explosive went off at a checkpoint, targeting the vigilantes at the entrance of the Ramirgo market.

Boko Haram has been waging a six-year uprising against the Nigerian state, which has claimed more than 15,000 lives.

The president, who decorated the officers in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, however, directed that while crushing the insurgents they must account for troops and equipment under their command.

As the multiple territorial losses of Boko Haram in Nigeria have significantly undermined its image, these suicide attacks may be an attempt to create a perception of strength and to bolster the group’s image as a regional threat.

Facts that the US might start sending arms to Nigeria came on the heels of the US Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle’s revelation in an interview with one of our correspondents that the US government never placed arms embargo on Nigeria.