Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau dismissed Nigerian military claims of his death in a new video obtained by AFP yesterday and said the militants had implemented strict Islamic law in captured towns.
“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.
Nigeria’s military said last week that Shekau was dead and that a man who had been posing as the group’s leader in the videos had been killed after fighting with troops in the far northeast.
Security analysts and the United States questioned the credibility of the military’s claim.
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.
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.
There was no indication of where or when the video was shot.
The heavily bearded Shekau, who appeared to be the same as those in previous clips, said the military’s claim that he was dead was propaganda.
“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, apparently referring to the destruction of the group’s mosque in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, in 2009.
There have been two previous claims by Nigeria’s security forces that Shekau was dead — once in 2009 during unrest in Maiduguri — and again in 2013.
Following each previous claim Boko Haram has issued denials in video messages.
Elsewhere in the new video, the militant leader said the group had implemented strict Islamic law in the towns that it had captured in recent weeks.
“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 group also claimed to have shot down a Nigerian air force jet that went missing nearly three weeks ago.
An Air Force spokesman said the jet was missing.
Meanwhile, the Defence Headquarters has insisted that the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau is dead, saying that the leader of the terrorist group was killed in the Konduga battle in September.
This was made known in a statement published on the website of the Defence Headquarters at www.defenceinfo.mil.ng
The full statement reads: “The Defence Headquarters is studying the claims made in the video purportedly released by the terrorists showing their leader Abubakar Shekau as dismissing his death.
“From immediate observation and what some online news outlets claimed to have seen, the video did not indicate when it was shot neither did it show any proof of life or currency such as screen time or date. The video also did not make any reference to anything that has happened since the impostor’s reported death.
Similarly, aftermath of another heavy defeat of Boko Haram terrorists who launched another attack weekend on Konduga in a bid to reclaim the dead body of the impostor of Abubakar Shekau, (Mohammed Bashir), the military has arrested a foreign computer expert who is said to be behind the several video shots sent to online media organization and foreign media houses.
He was said to have been arrested with some sophisticated equipment and copies of some of the videos the terrorists had sent to online media houses on their escapades including that of the abducted Chibok girls, iy was leant.
Military sources disclosed that the computer analyst who is currently being interrogated was responsible for configuring computer images website and internet accesses that enables the group fight media and psychological operations.
Sources said he was arrested after a shootout when a group of the sect members mobilized and attacked Konduga with a view to recovering the body of the impostor for burial in a site they would later earmark as their shrine.
Our correspondent further gathered that the foreigner has made shocking confessional statements about the terrorist’s plans and modus operandi as well as their backers that would aid the troop’s fast track the routing of the Boko Haram insurgency.
“We have made a very big break through; the computer analyst is opening up and has made very big revelations on the modus operandi of the sect”.
“We also discovered that the ICT expert is the back bone of the signals and communication links of late impersonator, Mohammed Bashir who always poses as Abubakar Shekau, whenever he is talking on “U” tube”.

Representative of the Geneal Manager, Rivers State Newspaper Corporation and Director of Publication, Mrs Juliet Njiwhor (right) casting her vote at the (NAWOJ) election at the Ministry of Women Affairs, last Friday at the 5th Triennial Delegate Conference, Rivers State