A man who claims to be Abubakar Shekau, the embattled leader of the Jihadist terrorist group, Boko Haram has resurfaced in a video posted online on Sunday, September 25, 2016 debunking claims by the Nigerian army that he had been seriously wounded.
“You have been spreading in the social media that you injured or killed me,” Shekau said in the 40-minute video released on YouTube and dated September 25. “Oh tyrants, I’m in a happy state, in good health and in safety.”
The Nigerian army said on August 23 that the longtime militant chief had been seriously wounded in the shoulder in an air raid in which several commanders were killed.
It is to be recalled that Nigerian authorities have reported him dead several times before, but the army’s latest claim was bolstered when Boko Haram which pledged allegiance last year to the Islamic State (IS) group released a video on September 13 without Shekau in it.
However, in the video released Sunday, Shekau points to a date on an Islamic calendar corresponding to September 25, 2016.
Shekau, who spoke in Hausa, Arabic and English and in dialects spoken in northeast Nigeria appeared to be in good physical health.
He used the video to issue threats against President Muhammadu Buhari, who appealed to the United Nations this week for help in negotiating the release of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by the militants more than two years ago.
“If you want your girls, bring back our brethren,” he stated
Shekau is believed to have been killed in battle in 2012. The Nigerian military says that the name Abubakar Shekau is now a ‘franchise’ used by the terrorist group to give the impression of invisibility to the Boko Haram leader.
