NIGERIA'S defence headquarters has launched a probe into news that Boko Haram's leader Sheikh Abubakar Shekau has been killed in the recent fierce fighting with government soldiers in Kodunga.
Over recent weeks, Boko Haram captured large swathes of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States but in a counter-offensive, the Nigerian Army succeeded in winning a major battle at Kodunga in Borno State. During the heated battle in Kodunga, about 200 Boko Haram fighters were said to have been killed and a lot of their equipment seized.
According to some military sources, Sheikh Shekau was killed at Kodunga on September 17 when government troops fired rockets on his position. Pictures of the dead Shekau have been circulated on the Internet but there is no independent corroboration of his demise and army chiefs have asked for evidence.
In the past, the Nigerian Army had declared Shekau dead, only for him to embarrass them by appearing in Youtube videos a few days later. Military chiefs dismissed such videos as fakes, saying the man who appeared in them was an imposter but the voice and physical appearance suggest that it is the genuine Sheikh Shekau.
This time around, to be sure, intelligence sources have been analysing the features of the man in the pictures to see if it is indeed Shekau. His death is certain to demoralise Boko Haram fighters and hasten their demise but if he is alive, it is likely to embolden his fighters to continue battling.
One military source said: “A commander sharing the features of Shekau was hit and fallen. Defence headquarters has received reports of the alleged fall of Boko Haram leader, Imam Shekau by troops but will soon address the nation after full investigation of their latest discovery.
“Nigerian troops might have scored a strategic victory in the current battle against terrorists operating in the Northeast on September 17. During a desperate attempt to capture Konduga in their delusion to eventually marching on and capturing Maiduguri, the man who had been mimicking Late Abubakar Shekau in recent videos might have been killed.
He added that the suspected demise of the Boko Haram leader is responsible for the scattering of the sect's members in different directions in neighbouring countries, especially in Cameroon, in recent days. Since the Battle of Kodunga, Boko Haram's match has been halted and their plans to take Maiduguri, the Borno State capital appear to be on the back foot.
Another military source said: “The process of confirming that the body we have is the same as that character who has been posing as Shekau is ongoing. He is definitely a prominent terrorist commander, so I don’t want to say anything about this yet please.”
A third high-ranking military source added: "The resemblance is too striking to be a coincidence. Troops cited his facial marks, beards and teeth apart from the recovery by the Nigerian troops of some of the armoured vehicles and Hilux jeeps that had featured in previous videos of the prime suspect.”
Last week, soldiers from the Seventh Mechanised Brigade of the Nigerian Army triumphantly paraded an armoured personnel carrier captured from Boko Haram through the streets of Maiduguri. In a morale-boosting move aimed at showing they are winning the war against terror, the army sought to assure the public that Boko Haram no longer had the capacity to take Maiduguri as it claimed it would do.
