BOKO HARAM LEADER, SHEKAU, FEARED KILLED •He died in Cameroon - JTF

INDICATIONS emerged in Abuja on Monday that Boko Haram sect leader, Abubakar Shekau, has been killed, with military sources disclosing that he died of gunshot wounds in Cameroon. According to sources, the Boko Haram leader was shot in June when Special Forces of the Joint Task Force (JTF) raided the vast forest of Sambisa in Borno. Nigerian Tribune gathered that when Shekau was shot by the Special Forces, he escaped to Mali, where he was placed on treatment but the injury became worse and had to be moved to Cameroon by some of his members before he died. The source added that the recent video recording allegedly released by the sect showing Shekau threatening everybody and calling the bluff of the United States (US), Britain and France and claiming that nobody could stop the group, was a smokescreen to paint a picture that he was still alive and in control. “In fact, as I am talking to you now, we have it on good authority that a close confidant of his (Shekau), who was mandated to follow him and ensure he received proper treatment and return him safely to the country, has been killed by other members of the group for allowing the information to get out,” the source said. When contacted on the development, the director of Defence Information, Brigadier-General Chris Olukolade, neither denied nor confirmed the story, adding that information would be released as soon it was ascertained. Meanwhile, a statement from the JTF spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Sagir Musa, made available to newsmen in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, revealed that the video released on August 13 by the purported sect leader was dramatised by an impostor, to hoodwink the sect members to continue with terrorism. The statement said intelligence report available at the JTF headquarters in Maiduguri revealed that Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram sect and the most wanted terrorists with a bounty of N50 million, as well as $7 million might have died of gunshot wound received in an encounter with JTF troops in one of their camps at Sambisa forest. “Shekau was mortally wounded in the encounter and was sneaked into Amitchide, a border community in Cameroon for treatment, from which he never recovered,” JTF said. The statement said, it is generally believed that the sect leader, Abubakar Shekau might have died between July 25 and August 3 2013. It will be recalled that a claim in 2009 that Shekau had been killed turnued out to be untrue. The JTF, therefore, appealed to the sect members to lay down their arms and embraced the offer for dialogue by the Federal Government.