Doubts linger over claims of Boko Haram leader’s death

LAGOS: A Nigerian military claim that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was dead was dismissed as propaganda on Thursday by analysts, who said that even if true it was unlikely to undermine the militants.
The Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that Shekau was dead and that one Bashir Mohammed, killed during recent clashes with troops, was a lookalike who had been impersonating him in videos.
The announcement was the first time that the military high command had said Shekau was dead, after refusing to confirm two previous claims from police and a regional task force in 2009 and 2013.
Ordinarily, news of the wanted terrorist group leader’s demise would make headlines but reaction was muted. “Military kills Abubakar Shekau ‘again’,” The Punch, one of only a few Nigerian newspapers to give the announcement prominence, said in a front-page headline.
The Defense Ministry did not disclose how or when the “original” Shekau died and security experts said they had not provided any concrete proof.
A photograph purporting to show Mohammed and put forward by the military to the media as evidence on Wednesday was the same as one circulating on social media for days, they added.
They also pointed to a precedent for videos featuring Shekau mocking claims of his death to emerge after the previous claims.
Meanwhile, police said on Thursday that one of 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram rebels in the northeastern Nigerian village of Chibok was freed this week. Boko Haram militants took the girls from a secondary school in the village near the Cameroon border in April.