Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram terrorist group has released a new video, debunking military claims that he had been killed.
According to AFP, the sect had released a video on Thursday capturing the Boko Haram leader as saying that he is alive. “Here I am, alive. I will only die the day Allah takes my breath,” Shekau said.
DailyPost gathered that the new video is relatively 36 minutes long. Shekau was reportedly seen bragging that he now runs an Islamic caliphate.
“Here I am, alive. I will only die the day Allah takes my breath,” Shekau said, adding that his group was “running our… Islamic caliphate” and administering strict sharia punishments.
The report says 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.
It claimed, ”Standing in front of THREE camouflaged vans and flanked by four heavily armed, masked fighters, he then speaks for 16 minutes in Arabic and the Hausa language widely spoken in northern Nigeria.”
The news agency reports that ”Shekau, who appeared to be the same as those in previous clips, said the military’s claim that he was dead was mere propaganda.”
It quoted Shekau thus; “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, apparently reading from a script.
“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,” he added.
“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,” he said.
The sect in the video also claimed to have shot down a Nigerian air force jet that went missing nearly three weeks ago.
But Air Commodore Dele Alonge told AFP that “For any group to claim they shot it down is mere propaganda and rubbish,”.
The Nigerian Army has recently announced with proofs of photos that the acclaimed leader of the group was killed in a raid near Kondunga in Borno state.
Details to follow