25th September, 2014
Controversy has continued to trail the death of Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau (real name Mohammed Bashir) as Nigeria and Cameroon lay claim to killing him.
Earlier in the week, the Cameroonian army had claimed credit for killing the impostor during a cross-border raid deep inside Nigeria.
To butress their claim, the Cameroonian military also released the photograph of the dead man.
An online news portal, The Street Journal, said it reliably gathered from a Cameroonian military source that Shekau was killed following an aerial bombardment of his hideout inside Nigeria.
However, on Wednesday, Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters, DHQ, formally announced that the nation’s military had killed the man who had been posing as Abubakar Shekau at Konduga.
The spokesman of the DHQ, Major-Gen Chris Olukolade, said many terrorists were killed during recent raids in Yobe and Adamawa States, including Mohammed Bashir, while 135 of the insurgents surrendered.
He said Boko Haram made four attempts to seize Konduga, about 60 kilometres to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, but they were repelled by the Nigerian military.
As it is, no one is sure about who actually killed the leader of the insurgents, as the photograph of the dead Shekau published by Cameroon is similar to the one released by Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters on Wednesday.
But some discerning observers of the war against Boko Haram were more disposed towards giving credit of the killing of Shekau’s impostor, Mohammed Bashir, last week to the Cameroonian military citing the fact that the Cameroonian military were the first to publish the photograph of the dead ‘Shekau.’
They wondered why it took the Nigerian military more than four days after the Cameroonians had published photograph of the dead ‘Shekau’ to butress its claim that it killed ‘Shekau.’
They recalled that the Nigerian military celebrated its well acclaimed victory over Boko Haram in Konduga by immediately releasing photographs of Nigerian soldiers marching triumphantly into Maiduguri with the captured armoured tank and cache of arms seized from the rebels in the battle for Konduga.
The observers also recalled the Australian negotiator, Dr Steven Davis confirming to a national daily immediately after the photograph of dead ‘Shekau’ surfaced on the internet that it was him.
Davis also confirmed to the newspaper in an e-mail that Boko Haram told him that ‘Shekau’ had been killed in the battle at Konduga.
The priest who was with Boko Haram insurgents for four months in Sambisa forest trying to negotiate the release of the kidnapped Chibok girls also disclosed that Boko Haram told him that the original Abubakar Shekau was killed on 19 June, 2013 during an internal disagreement over modes of operation.
When the Cameroonian military came out with its claim of killing Shekau on Sunday , the Defence Headquarters in a report on its twitter handle denied the Camerooian claim, saying that there was no raid whatsoever in any part of Nigeria’s territory in pursuit of terrorists as claimed in some reports quoting the Cameroon military authorities.
“All operations ongoing in the environs on Konduga and all associated border locations within the country are completely being undertaken by Nigerian troops,” DHQ stated.