Boko Haram chief Shekau 'dead': Police spokesperson

LAGOS

A Nigerian police spokesman insisted Monday that Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau was dead despite a recent video footage in which he bragged the abduction of scores of schoolgirls.

"Boko Harm has become a franchise, anybody can assume and lay claim to any name," secret police spokesperson Marilyn Ogar told a news briefing.

"What I know is that the original Abubakar Shekau is dead. The person claiming to be the national leader now is not the original Abubakar Shekau," the spokesperson insisted.

"If security sources tell you that somebody is dead, you don't have to come out and doubt that," she said.

Shekau appeared in a video footage on Monday to call for swapping scores of abducted schoolgirls for Boko Haram militants held by Nigerian authorities.

In a 17-minute video obtained by the local Daily Trust newspaper, Shekau, clad in his traditional military fatigues, Shekau bragged that some of the girls – many of whom are said to be Christian – had converted to Islam.

"If you want us to release your girls… you must release our brethren that are held in Borno, in Yobe, in Kano, in Kaduna, in Abuja, in Lagos, up to Enugu," Shekau said, speaking a mixture of Arabic, English and the local Hausa and Kanuri dialects.

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language, first emerged in the early 2000s preaching against government misrule and corruption.

The group later became violent, however, after the death of its leader in 2009 while in police custody.

In the five years since, the shadowy sect has been blamed for numerous attacks – on places of worship and government institutions – and thousands of deaths.

Nigerian Muslim group slams Boko Haram 'girl conversions'

The leader of an influential Muslim rights organization in Nigeria has slammed the reported forced conversion of scores of abducted Christian schoolgirls to Islam by the Boko Haram militant group as "cowardly, shameful and preposterous."

"We reject the purported conversion of the kidnapped girls. It is cowardly, shameful, ridiculous and preposterous. It is sacrilege," Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) chief Ishaq Akintola said in a Tuesday statement.

The condemnation came one day after Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau appeared in a video in which he said that Christians among the girls abducted on April 14 had been converted to Islam. He added that the girls would only be freed in exchange for Boko Haram members held in Nigerian prisons.

"We affirm authoritatively that such conversion does not hold water in Islam because a non-Muslim can only be converted on his or her own free will," Akintola said in his statement.

"We have no iota of doubt that the girls 'converted' under duress. Such 'conversion' is null and void under [Islamic] Sharia," he added.

The MURIC chief went on to lash out at Shekau, saying the latter lacked honor for kidnapping young girls. He also called on the government to reject any offers for a prisoner swap.

"The so-called conversion is therefore baseless, unfounded and of no validity whatsoever. It exists only in the hallucinated imageries in Shekau's demented mind," the statement read.

"MURIC urges the federal government to dismiss Shekau's offer of exchange of Boko Haram prisoners for the kidnapped girls. A man who orders the invasion and kidnap of innocent young girls is honor-blind," it added.

"Shame on Boko Haram! Shekau has no modicum of integrity left in his anatomy," Shekau went on. "He has no intention of honoring this deal. He is trying to buy time."

The MURIC leader urged Christians and Muslims to pray for the "downfall of Boko Haram," which he described as a "renegade group out to defame and distort the true teachings of Islam."

"Members of Boko Haram are rebellious subjects and enemies of peace," he asserted. "We charge the Nigerian Army to go back to the drawing board and evolve more potent strategies for crushing this renegade group."

On April 14, Boko Haram militants stormed a school in the town of Chibok in the northeastern Borno State and loaded scores of schoolgirls onto trucks before driving away unchallenged.

 The exact number of abducted schoolgirls, however, still remains dogged by controversy.

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden" in Nigeria's local Hausa language, first emerged in the early 2000s preaching against government misrule and corruption.

The group later became violent, however, after the death of its leader in 2009 while in police custody.

In the five years since, the shadowy sect has been blamed for numerous attacks – on places of worship and government institutions – and thousands of deaths.

Military teams from the United Kingdom and United States have already arrived in Nigeria as part of a global response to the mass abductions.

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